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diff --git a/old/youth10.txt b/old/youth10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53164db --- /dev/null +++ b/old/youth10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7084 @@ +****The Project Gutenberg Etext of Youth, by by Leo Tolstoy**** +#10 in our series by Leo Tolstoy + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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Hogarth + + + + +I + +WHAT I CONSIDER TO HAVE BEEN THE BEGINNING OF MY YOUTH + +I have said that my friendship with Dimitri opened up for me a +new view of my life and of its aim and relations. The essence of +that view lay in the conviction that the destiny of man is to +strive for moral improvement, and that such improvement is at +once easy, possible, and lasting. Hitherto, however, I had found +pleasure only in the new ideas which I discovered to arise from +that conviction, and in the forming of brilliant plans for a +moral, active future, while all the time my life had been +continuing along its old petty, muddled, pleasure-seeking course, +and the same virtuous thoughts which I and my adored friend +Dimitri ("my own marvellous Mitia," as I used to call him to +myself in a whisper) had been wont to exchange with one another +still pleased my intellect, but left my sensibility untouched. +Nevertheless there came a moment when those thoughts swept into +my head with a sudden freshness and force of moral revelation +which left me aghast at the amount of time which I had been +wasting, and made me feel as though I must at once--that very +second--apply those thoughts to life, with the firm intention of +never again changing them. + +It is from that moment that I date the beginning of my youth. + +I was then nearly sixteen. Tutors still attended to give me +lessons, St. Jerome still acted as general supervisor of my +education, and, willy-nilly, I was being prepared for the +University. In addition to my studies, my occupations included +certain vague dreamings and ponderings, a number of gymnastic +exercises to make myself the finest athlete in the world, a good +deal of aimless, thoughtless wandering through the rooms of the +house (but more especially along the maidservants' corridor), and +much looking at myself in the mirror. From the latter, however, I +always turned away with a vague feeling of depression, almost of +repulsion. Not only did I feel sure that my exterior was ugly, +but I could derive no comfort from any of the usual consolations +under such circumstances. I could not say, for instance, that I +had at least an expressive, clever, or refined face, for there +was nothing whatever expressive about it. Its features were of +the most humdrum, dull, and unbecoming type, with small grey eyes +which seemed to me, whenever I regarded them in the mirror, to be +stupid rather than clever. Of manly bearing I possessed even +less, since, although I was not exactly small of stature, and +had, moreover, plenty of strength for my years, every feature in +my face was of the meek, sleepy-looking, indefinite type. Even +refinement was lacking in it, since, on the contrary, it +precisely resembled that of a simple-looking moujik, while I also +had the same big hands and feet as he. At the time, all this +seemed to me very shameful. + +II + +SPRINGTIME + +Easter of the year when I entered the University fell late in +April, so that the examinations were fixed for St. Thomas's Week, +[Easter week.] and I had to spend Good Friday in fasting and +finally getting myself ready for the ordeal. + +Following upon wet snow (the kind of stuff which Karl Ivanitch +used to describe as "a child following, its father"), the weather +had for three days been bright and mild and still. Not a clot of +snow was now to be seen in the streets, and the dirty slush had +given place to wet, shining pavements and coursing rivulets. The +last icicles on the roofs were fast melting in the sunshine, buds +were swelling on the trees in the little garden, the path leading +across the courtyard to the stables was soft instead of being a +frozen ridge of mud, and mossy grass was showing green between +the stones around the entrance-steps. It was just that particular +time in spring when the season exercises the strongest influence +upon the human soul--when clear sunlight illuminates everything, +yet sheds no warmth, when rivulets run trickling under one's +feet, when the air is charged with an odorous freshness, and when +the bright blue sky is streaked with long, transparent clouds. + +For some reason or another the influence of this early stage in +the birth of spring always seems to me more perceptible and more +impressive in a great town than in the country. One sees less, +but one feels more. I was standing near the window--through the +double frames of which the morning sun was throwing its mote- +flecked beams upon the floor of what seemed to me my intolerably +wearisome schoolroom--and working out a long algebraical equation +on the blackboard. In one hand I was holding a ragged, long- +suffering "Algebra" and in the other a small piece of chalk +which had already besmeared my hands, my face, and the elbows of +my jacket. Nicola, clad in an apron, and with his sleeves rolled +up, was picking out the putty from the window-frames with a pair +of nippers, and unfastening the screws. The window looked out +upon the little garden. At length his occupation and the noise +which he was making over it arrested my attention. At the moment +I was in a very cross, dissatisfied frame of mind, for nothing +seemed to be going right with me. I had made a mistake at the +very beginning of my algebra, and so should have to work it out +again; twice I had let the chalk drop. I was conscious that my +hands and face were whitened all over; the sponge had rolled away +into a corner; and the noise of Nicola's operations was fast +getting on my nerves. I had a feeling as though I wanted to fly +into a temper and grumble at some one, so I threw down chalk and +"Algebra" alike, and began to pace the room. Then suddenly I +remembered that to-day we were to go to confession, and that +therefore I must refrain from doing anything wrong. Next, with +equal suddenness I relapsed into an extraordinarily goodhumoured +frame of mind, and walked across to Nicola. + +"Let me help you, Nicola," I said, trying to speak as pleasantly +as I possibly could. The idea that I was performing a meritorious +action in thus suppressing my ill-temper and offering to help him +increased my good-humour all the more. + +By this time the putty had been chipped out, and the screws +removed, yet, though Nicola pulled with might and main at the +cross-piece, the window-frame refused to budge. + +"If it comes out as soon as he and I begin to pull at it +together," I thought, "it will be rather a shame, as then I shall +have nothing more of the kind to do to-day." + +Suddenly the frame yielded a little at one side, and came out. + +"Where shall I put it?" I said. + +"Let ME see to it, if you please," replied Nicola, evidently +surprised as well as, seemingly, not over-pleased at my zeal. +"We must not leave it here, but carry it away to the lumber-room, +where I keep all the frames stored and numbered." + +"Oh, but I can manage it," I said as I lifted it up. I verily +believe that if the lumber-room had been a couple of versts away, +and the frame twice as heavy as it was, I should have been the +more pleased. I felt as though I wanted to tire myself out in +performing this service for Nicola. When I returned to the room +the bricks and screws had been replaced on the windowsill, and +Nicola was sweeping the debris, as well as a few torpid flies, +out of the open window. The fresh, fragrant air was rushing into +and filling all the room, while with it came also the dull murmur +of the city and the twittering of sparrows in the garden. +Everything was in brilliant light, the room looked cheerful, and +a gentle spring breeze was stirring Nicola's hair and the leaves +of my "Algebra." Approaching the window, I sat down upon the +sill, turned my eyes downwards towards the garden, and fell into +a brown study. + +Something new to me, something extraordinarily potent and +unfamiliar, had suddenly invaded my soul. The wet ground on +which, here and there, a few yellowish stalks and blades of +bright-green grass were to be seen; the little rivulets +glittering in the sunshine, and sweeping clods of earth and tiny +chips of wood along with them; the reddish twigs of the lilac, +with their swelling buds, which nodded just beneath the window; +the fussy twitterings of birds as they fluttered in the bush +below; the blackened fence shining wet from the snow which had +lately melted off it; and, most of all, the raw, odorous air and +radiant sunlight--all spoke to me, clearly and unmistakably, of +something new and beautiful, of something which, though I cannot +repeat it here as it was then expressed to me, I will try to +reproduce so far as I understood it. Everything spoke to me of +beauty, happiness, and virtue--as three things which were both +easy and possible for me--and said that no one of them could +exist without the other two, since beauty, happiness, and virtue +were one. "How did I never come to understand that before?" I +cried to myself. "How did I ever manage to be so wicked? Oh, but +how good, how happy, I could be--nay, I WILL be--in the future! +At once, at once--yes, this very minute--I will become another +being, and begin to live differently!" For all that, I continued +sitting on the window-sill, continued merely dreaming, and doing +nothing. Have you ever, on a summer's day, gone to bed in dull, +rainy weather, and, waking just at sunset, opened your eyes and +seen through the square space of the window--the space where the +linen blind is blowing up and down, and beating its rod upon the +window-sill--the rain-soaked, shadowy, purple vista of an avenue +of lime-trees, with a damp garden path lit up by the clear, +slanting beams of the sun, and then suddenly heard the joyous +sounds of bird life in the garden, and seen insects flying to and +fro at the open window, and glittering in the sunlight, and smelt +the fragrance of the rain-washed air, and thought to yourself, +"Am I not ashamed to be lying in bed on such an evening as this?" +and, leaping joyously to your feet, gone out into the garden and +revelled in all that welter of life? If you have, then you can +imagine for yourself the overpowering sensation which was then +possessing me. + +III + +DREAMS + +"To-day I will make my confession and purge myself of every sin," +I thought to myself. "Nor will I ever commit another one." At +this point I recalled all the peccadilloes which most troubled my +conscience. "I will go to church regularly every Sunday, as well +as read the Gospel at the close of every hour throughout the day. +What is more, I will set aside, out of the cheque which I shall +receive each month after I have gone to the University, two-and- +a-half roubles" (a tenth of my monthly allowance) "for people who +are poor but not exactly beggars, yet without letting any one +know anything about it. Yes, I will begin to look out for people +like that--orphans or old women--at once, yet never tell a soul +what I am doing for them. + +"Also, I will have a room here of my very own (St. Jerome's, +probably), and look after it myself, and keep it perfectly clean. +I will never let any one do anything for me, for every one is +just a human being like myself. Likewise I will walk every day, +not drive, to the University. Even if some one gives me a drozhki +[Russian phaeton.] I will sell it, and devote the money to the +poor. Everything I will do exactly and always" (what that +"always" meant I could not possibly have said, but at least I had +a vivid consciousness of its connoting some kind of prudent, +moral, and irreproachable life). "I will get up all my lectures +thoroughly, and go over all the subjects beforehand, so that at +the end of my first course I may come out top and write a thesis. +During my second course also I will get up everything beforehand, +so that I may soon be transferred to the third course, and at +eighteen come out top in the examinations, and receive two gold +medals, and go on to be Master of Arts, and Doctor, and the first +scholar in Europe. Yes, in all Europe I mean to be the first +scholar.--Well, what next?" I asked myself at this point. +Suddenly it struck me that dreams of this sort were a form of +pride--a sin which I should have to confess to the priest that +very evening, so I returned to the original thread of my +meditations. "When getting up my lectures I will go to the +Vorobievi Gori, [Sparrow Hills--a public park near Moscow.] and +choose some spot under a tree, and read my lectures over there. +Sometimes I will take with me something to eat--cheese or a pie +from Pedotti's, or something of the kind. After that I will sleep +a little, and then read some good book or other, or else draw +pictures or play on some instrument (certainly I must learn to +play the flute). Perhaps SHE too will be walking on the Vorobievi +Gori, and will approach me one day and say, 'Who are you?' and I +shall look at her, oh, so sadly, and say that I am the son of a +priest, and that I am happy only when I am there alone, quite +alone. Then she will give me her hand, and say something to me, +and sit down beside me. So every day we shall go to the same +spot, and be friends together, and I shall kiss her. But no! That +would not be right! On the contrary, from this day forward I +never mean to look at a woman again. Never, never again do I mean +to walk with a girl, nor even to go near one if I can help it. +Yet, of course, in three years' time, when I have come of age, I +shall marry. Also, I mean to take as much exercise as ever I can, +and to do gymnastics every day, so that, when I have turned +twenty-five, I shall be stronger even than Rappo. On my first +day's training I mean to hold out half a pood [The Pood = 40 +Russian pounds.] at arm's length for five minutes, and the next +day twenty-one pounds, and the third day twenty-two pounds, and +so on, until at last I can hold out four poods in each hand, and +be stronger even than a porter. Then, if ever any one should try +to insult me or should begin to speak disrespectfully of HER, I +shall take him so, by the front of his coat, and lift him up an +arshin [The arshin = 2 feet 3 inches.] or two with one hand, and +just hold him there, so that he may feel my strength and cease +from his conduct. Yet that too would not be right. No, no, it +would not matter; I should not hurt him, merely show him that I--" + +Let no one blame me because the dreams of my youth were as +foolish as those of my childhood and boyhood. I am sure that, +even if it be my fate to live to extreme old age and to continue +my story with the years, I, an old man of seventy, shall be found +dreaming dreams just as impossible and childish as those I am +dreaming now. I shall be dreaming of some lovely Maria who loves +me, the toothless old man, as she might love a Mazeppa; of some +imbecile son who, through some extraordinary chance, has suddenly +become a minister of state; of my suddenly receiving a windfall +of a million of roubles. I am sure that there exists no human +being, no human age, to whom or to which that gracious, +consolatory power of dreaming is totally a stranger. Yet, save +for the one general feature of magic and impossibility, the +dreams of each human being, of each age of man, have their own +distinguishing characteristics. At the period upon which I look +as having marked the close of my boyhood and the beginning of my +youth, four leading sentiments formed the basis of my dreams. The +first of those sentiments was love for HER--for an imaginary +woman whom I always pictured the same in my dreams, and whom I +somehow expected to meet some day and somewhere. This she of mine +had a little of Sonetchka in her, a little of Masha as Masha +could look when she stood washing linen over the clothes-tub, and +a little of a certain woman with pearls round her fair white neck +whom I had once seen long, long ago at a theatre, in a box below +our own. My second sentiment was a craving for love. I wanted +every one to know me and to love me. I wanted to be able to utter +my name--Nicola Irtenieff--and at once to see every one +thunderstruck at it, and come crowding round me and thanking me +for something or another, I hardly knew what. My third sentiment +was the expectation of some extraordinary, glorious happiness +that was impending--some happiness so strong and assured as to +verge upon ecstasy. Indeed, so firmly persuaded was I that very, +very soon some unexpected chance would suddenly make me the +richest and most famous man in the world that I lived in +constant, tremulous expectation of this magic good fortune +befalling me. I was always thinking to myself that "IT is +beginning," and that I should go on thereafter to attain +everything that a man could wish for. Consequently, I was for ever +hurrying from place to place, in the belief that "IT" must be +"beginning" just where I happened not to be. Lastly, my fourth +and principal sentiment of all was abhorrence of myself, mingled +with regret--yet a regret so blended with the certain expectation +of happiness to which I have referred that it had in it nothing +of sorrow. It seemed to me that it would be so easy and natural +for me to tear myself away from my past and to remake it--to +forget all that had been, and to begin my life, with all its +relations, anew--that the past never troubled me, never clung to +me at all. I even found a certain pleasure in detesting the past, +and in seeing it in a darker light than the true one. This note +of regret and of a curious longing for perfection were the chief +mental impressions which I gathered from that new stage of my +growth--impressions which imparted new principles to my view of +myself, of men, and of God's world. O good and consoling voice, +which in later days, in sorrowful days when my soul yielded +silently to the sway of life's falseness and depravity, so often +raised a sudden, bold protest against all iniquity, as well as +mercilessly exposed the past, commanded, nay, compelled, me to +love only the pure vista of the present, and promised me all that +was fair and happy in the future! O good and consoling voice! +Surely the day will never come when you are silent? + +IV + +OUR FAMILY CIRCLE + +PAPA was seldom at home that spring. Yet, whenever he was so, he +seemed extraordinarily cheerful as he either strummed his +favourite pieces on the piano or looked roguishly at us and made +jokes about us all, not excluding even Mimi. For instance, he +would say that the Tsarevitch himself had seen Mimi at the rink, +and fallen so much in love with her that he had presented a +petition to the Synod for divorce; or else that I had been +granted an appointment as secretary to the Austrian ambassador-- +a piece of news which he imparted to us with a perfectly grave +face. Next, he would frighten Katenka with some spiders (of which +she was very much afraid), engage in an animated conversation +with our friends Dubkoff and Nechludoff, and tell us and our +guests, over and over again, his plans for the year. Although +these plans changed almost from day to day, and +were for ever contradicting one another, they seemed so +attractive that we were always glad to listen to them, and +Lubotshka, in particular, would glue her eyes to his face, so as +not to lose a single word. One day his plan would be that he +should leave my brother and myself at the University, and go and +live with Lubotshka in Italy for two years. Next, the plan would +be that he should buy an estate on the south coast of the Crimea, +and take us for an annual visit there; next, that we should +migrate en masse to St. Petersburg; and so forth. Yet, in +addition to this unusual cheerfulness of his, another change had +come over him of late--a change which greatly surprised me. This +was that he had had some fashionable clothes made--an olive- +coloured frockcoat, smart trousers with straps at the sides, and +a long wadded greatcoat which fitted him to perfection. Often, +too, there was a delightful smell of scent about him when he came +home from a party--more especially when he had been to see a lady +of whom Mimi never spoke but with a sigh and a face that seemed +to say: "Poor orphans! How dreadful! It is a good thing that SHE +is gone now!" and so on, and so on. From Nicola (for Papa never +spoke to us of his gambling) I had learnt that he (Papa) had been +very fortunate in play that winter, and so had won an +extraordinary amount of money, all of which he had placed in the +bank after vowing that he would play no more that spring. +Evidently, it was his fear of being unable to resist again doing +so that was rendering him anxious to leave for the country as +soon as possible. Indeed, he ended by deciding not to wait until +I had entered the University, but to take the girls to Petrovskoe +immediately after Easter, and to leave Woloda and myself to +follow them at a later season. + +All that winter, until the opening of spring, Woloda had been +inseparable from Dubkoff, while at the same time the pair of them +had cooled greatly towards Dimitri. Their chief amusements (so I +gathered from conversations overheard) were continual drinking of +champagne, sledge-driving past the windows of a lady with whom +both of them appeared to be in love, and dancing with her--not at +children's parties, either, but at real balls! It was this last +fact which, despite our love for one another, placed a vast gulf +between Woloda and myself. We felt that the distance between a +boy still taking lessons under a tutor and a man who danced at +real, grown-up balls was too great to allow of their exchanging +mutual ideas. Katenka, too, seemed grown-up now, and read +innumerable novels; so that the idea that she would some day be +getting married no longer seemed to me a joke. Yet, though she +and Woloda were thus grown-up, they never made friends with one +another, but, on the contrary, seemed to cherish a mutual +contempt. In general, when Katenka was at home alone, nothing but +novels amused her, and they but slightly; but as soon as ever a +visitor of the opposite sex called, she at once grew lively and +amiable, and used her eyes for saying things which I could not +then understand. It was only later, when she one day informed me +in conversation that the only thing a girl was allowed to indulge +in was coquetry--coquetry of the eyes, I mean--that I understood +those strange contortions of her features which to every one else +had seemed a matter for no surprise at all. Lubotshka also had +begun to wear what was almost a long dress--a dress which almost +concealed her goose-shaped feet; yet she still remained as ready +a weeper as ever. She dreamed now of marrying, not a hussar, but +a singer or an instrumentalist, and accordingly applied herself +to her music with greater diligence than ever. St. Jerome, who +knew that he was going to remain with us only until my +examinations were over, and so had obtained for himself a new +post in the family of some count or another, now looked with +contempt upon the members of our household. He stayed indoors +very little, took to smoking cigarettes (then all the rage), and +was for ever whistling lively tunes on the edge of a card. Mimi +daily grew more and more despondent, as though, now that we were +beginning to grow up, she looked for nothing good from any one or +anything. + +When, on the day of which I am speaking, I went in to luncheon I +found only Mimi, Katenka, Lubotshka, and St. Jerome in the +dining-room. Papa was away, and Woloda in his own room, doing +some preparation work for his examinations in company with a +party of his comrades: wherefore he had requested that lunch +should be sent to him there. Of late, Mimi had usually taken the +head of the table, and as none of us had any respect for her, +luncheon had lost most of its refinement and charm. That is to +say, the meal was no longer what it had been in Mamma's or our +grandmother's time, namely, a kind of rite which brought all the +family together at a given hour and divided the day into two +halves. We allowed ourselves to come in as late as the second +course, to drink wine in tumblers (St. Jerome himself set us the +example), to roll about on our chairs, to depart without saying +grace, and so on. In fact, luncheon had ceased to be a family +ceremony. In the old days at Petrovskoe, every one had been used +to wash and dress for the meal, and then to repair to the +drawing-room as the appointed hour (two o'clock) drew near, and +pass the time of waiting in lively conversation. Just as the +clock in the servants' hall was beginning to whirr before +striking the hour, Foka would enter with noiseless footsteps, and, +throwing his napkin over his arm and assuming a dignified, rather +severe expression, would say in loud, measured tones: "Luncheon +is ready!" Thereupon, with pleased, cheerful faces, we would form +a procession--the elders going first and the juniors following, +and, with much rustling of starched petticoats and subdued +creaking of boots and shoes--would proceed to the dining-room, +where, still talking in undertones, the company would seat +themselves in their accustomed places. Or, again, at Moscow, we +would all of us be standing before the table ready-laid in the +hall, talking quietly among ourselves as we waited for our +grandmother, whom the butler, Gabriel, had gone to acquaint with +the fact that luncheon was ready. Suddenly the door would open, +there would come the faint swish of a dress and the sound of +footsteps, and our grandmother--dressed in a mob-cap trimmed with +a quaint old lilac bow, and wearing either a smile or a severe +expression on her face according as the state of her health +inclined her--would issue from her room. Gabriel would hasten to +precede her to her arm-chair, the other chairs would make a +scraping sound, and, with a feeling as though a cold shiver (the +precursor of appetite) were running down one's back, one would +seize upon one's damp, starched napkin, nibble a morsel or two of +bread, and, rubbing one's hands softly under the table, gaze with +eager, radiant impatience at the steaming plates of soup which +the butler was beginning to dispense in order of ranks and ages +or according to the favour of our grandmother. + +On the present occasion, however, I was conscious of neither +excitement nor pleasure when I went in to luncheon. Even the +mingled chatter of Mimi, the girls, and St. Jerome about the +horrible boots of our Russian tutor, the pleated dresses worn by +the young Princesses Kornakoff, and so forth (chatter which at +any other time would have filled me with a sincerity of contempt +which I should have been at no pains to conceal--at all events so +far as Lubotshka and Katenka were concerned), failed to shake the +benevolent frame of mind into which I had fallen. I was unusually +good-humoured that day, and listened to everything with a smile +and a studied air of kindness. Even when I asked for the kvas I +did so politely, while I lost not a moment in agreeing with St. +Jerome when he told me that it was undoubtedly more correct to +say "Je peux" than "Je puis." Yet, I must confess to a certain +disappointment at finding that no one paid any particular +attention to my politeness and good-humour. After luncheon, +Lubotshka showed me a paper on which she had written down a list +of her sins: upon which I observed that, although the idea was +excellent so far as it went, it would be still better for her to +write down her sins on her SOUL--"a very different matter." + +"Why is it 'a very different matter'?" asked Lubotshka. + +"Never mind: that is all right; you do not understand me," and I +went upstairs to my room, telling St. Jerome that I was going to +work, but in reality purposing to occupy the hour and a half +before confession time in writing down a list of my daily tasks +and duties which should last me all my life, together with a +statement of my life's aim, and the rules by which I meant +unswervingly to be guided. + +v + +MY RULES + +I TOOK some sheets of paper, and tried, first of all, to make a +list of my tasks and duties for the coming year. The paper needed +ruling, but, as I could not find the ruler, I had to use a Latin +dictionary instead. The result was that, when I had drawn the pen +along the edge of the dictionary and removed the latter, I found +that, in place of a line, I had only made an oblong smudge on the +paper, since the, dictionary was not long enough to reach across +it, and the pen had slipped round the soft, yielding corner of +the book. Thereupon I took another piece of paper, and, by +carefully manipulating the dictionary, contrived to rule what at +least RESEMBLED lines. Dividing my duties into three sections-- +my duties to myself, my duties to my neighbour, and my duties to +God--I started to indite a list of the first of those sections, +but they seemed to me so numerous, and therefore requiring to be +divided into so many species and subdivisions, that I thought I +had better first of all write down the heading of "Rules of My +Life" before proceeding to their detailed inscription. +Accordingly, I proceeded to write "Rules of My Life" on the +outside of the six sheets of paper which I had made into a sort +of folio, but the words came out in such a crooked and uneven +scrawl that for long I sat debating the question, "Shall I write +them again?"--for long, sat in agonised contemplation of the +ragged handwriting and disfigured title-page. Why was it that all +the beauty and clarity which my soul then contained came out so +misshapenly on paper (as in life itself) just when I was wishing +to apply those qualities to what I was thinking at the moment? + +"The priest is here, so please come downstairs and hear his +directions," said Nicola as he entered, + +Hurriedly concealing my folio under the table-cloth, I looked at +myself in the mirror, combed my hair upwards (I imagined this to +give me a pensive air), and descended to the divannaia, [Room +with divans, or ante-room] where the table stood covered with a +cloth and had an ikon and candles placed upon it. Papa entered +just as I did, but by another door: whereupon the priest--a grey- +headed old monk with a severe, elderly face--blessed him, and +Papa kissed his small, squat, wizened hand. I did the same. + +"Go and call Woldemar," said Papa. "Where is he? Wait a minute, +though. Perhaps he is preparing for the Communion at the +University?" + +"No, he is with the Prince," said Katenka, and glanced at +Lubotshka. Suddenly the latter blushed for some reason or +another, and then frowned. Finally, pretending that she was not +well, she left the room, and I followed her. In the drawing-room +she halted, and began to pencil something fresh on her paper of +peccadilloes. + +"Well, what new sin have you gone and committed?" I asked. + +"Nothing," she replied with another blush. All at once we heard +Dimitri's voice raised in the hall as he took his leave of +Woloda. + +"It seems to me you are always experiencing some new temptation," +said Katenka, who had entered the room behind us, and now stood +looking at Lubotshka. + +What was the matter with my sister I could not conceive, but she +was now so agitated that the tears were starting from her eyes. +Finally her confusion grew uncontrollable, and vented itself in +rage against both herself and Katenka, who appeared to be teasing +her. + +"Any one can see that you are a FOREIGNER!" she cried (nothing +offended Katenka so much as to be called by that term, which is +why Lubotshka used it). "Just because I have the secret of which +you know," she went on, with anger ringing through her tone, "you +purposely go and upset me! Please do understand that it is no +joking matter." + +"Do you know what she has gone and written on her paper, +Nicolinka? cried Katenka, much infuriated by the term +"foreigner." "She has written down that--" + +"Oh, I never could have believed that you could be so cruel!" +exclaimed Lubotshka, now bursting into open sobbing as she moved +away from us. "You chose that moment on purpose! You spend your +whole time in trying to make me sin! I'll never go to YOU again +for sympathy and advice!" + +VI + +CONFESSION + +With these and other disjointed impressions in my mind, I returned +to the divannaia. As soon as every one had reassembled, the +priest rose and prepared to read the prayer before confession. +The instant that the silence was broken by the stern, expressive +voice of the monk as he recited the prayer--and more especially +when he addressed to us the words: "Reveal thou all thy sins +without shame, concealment, or extenuation, and let thy soul be +cleansed before God: for if thou concealest aught, then great +will be thy sin"--the same sensation of reverent awe came over me +as I had felt during the morning. I even took a certain pleasure +in recognising this condition of mine, and strove to preserve it, +not only by restraining all other thoughts from entering my +brain, but also by consciously exerting myself to feel no other +sensation than this same one of reverence. + +Papa was the first to go to confession. He remained a long, long +time in the room which had belonged to our grandmother, and +during that time the rest of us kept silence in the divannaia, or +only whispered to one another on the subject of who should +precede whom. At length, the voice of the priest again reading the +prayer sounded from the doorway, and then Papa's footsteps. The +door creaked as he came out, coughing and holding one shoulder +higher than the other, in his usual way, and for the moment he +did not look at any of us. + +"YOU go now, Luba," he said presently, as he gave her cheek a +mischievous pinch. "Mind you tell him everything. You are my +greatest sinner, you know." + +Lubotshka went red and pale by turns, took her memorandum paper +out of her apron, replaced it, and finally moved away towards the +doorway with her head sunk between her shoulders as though she +expected to receive a blow upon it from above. She was not long +gone, and when she returned her shoulders were shaking with sobs. + +At length--next after the excellent Katenka (who came out of the +doorway with a smile on her face)--my turn arrived. I entered the +dimly-lighted room with the same vague feeling of awe, the same +conscious eagerness to arouse that feeling more and more in my +soul, that had possessed me up to the present moment. The priest, +standing in front of a reading-desk, slowly turned his face to +me. + +I was not more than five minutes in the room, but came out from +it happy and (so I persuaded myself) entirely cleansed--a new, a +morally reborn individual. Despite the fact that the old +surroundings of my life now struck me as unfamiliar (even though +the rooms, the furniture, and my own figure--would to heavens +that I could have changed my outer man for the better in the same +way that I believed myself to have changed my inner I--were the +same as before), I remained in that comfortable attitude of mine +until the very moment of bedtime. + +Yet, no sooner had I begun to grow drowsy with the conning over +of my sins than in a flash I recollected a particularly shameful +sin which I had suppressed at confession time. Instantly the +words of the prayer before confession came back to my memory and +began sounding in my ears. My peace was gone for ever. "For if +thou concealest aught, then great will be thy sin." Each time +that the phrase recurred to me I saw myself a sinner for whom no +punishment was adequate. Long did I toss from side to side as I +considered my position, while expecting every moment to be +visited with the divine wrath--to be struck with sudden death, +perhaps!--an insupportable thought! Then suddenly the reassuring +thought occurred to me: "Why should I not drive out to the +monastery when the morning comes, and see the priest again, and +make a second confession?" Thereafter I grew calmer. + +VII + +THE EXPEDITION TO THE MONASTERY + +Several times that night I woke in terror at the thought that I +might be oversleeping myself, and by six o'clock was out of bed, +although the dawn was hardly peeping in at the window. I put on +my clothes and boots (all of which were lying tumbled and +unbrushed beside the bed, since Nicola, of course had not been in +yet to tidy them up), and, without a prayer said or my face +washed, emerged, for the first time in my life, into the street +ALONE. + +Over the way, behind the green roof of a large building, the dim, +cold dawn was beginning to blush red. The keen frost of the +spring morning which had stiffened the pools and mud and made +them crackle under my feet now nipped my face and hands also. Not +a cab was to be seen, though I had counted upon one to make the +journey out and home the quicker. Only a file of waggons was +rumbling along the Arbat Prospect, and a couple of bricklayers +talking noisily together as they strode along the pavement. +However, after walking a verst or so I began to meet men and +women taking baskets to market or going with empty barrels to +fetch the day's water supply; until at length, at the cross +streets near the Arbat Gate, where a pieman had set up his stall +and a baker was just opening his shop, I espied an old cabman +shaking himself after indulging in a nap on the box of his be- +scratched old blue-painted, hobble-de-hoy wreck of a drozhki. He +seemed barely awake as he asked twenty copecks as the fare to the +monastery and back, but came to himself a moment afterwards, just +as I was about to get in, and, touching up his horse with the +spare end of the reins, started to drive off and leave me. "My +horse wants feeding," he growled, "I can't take you, barin.[Sir]" + +With some difficulty and a promise of FORTY copecks I persuaded +him to stop. He eyed me narrowly as he pulled up, but +nevertheless said: "Very well. Get in, barin." I must confess +that I had some qualms lest he should drive me to a quiet corner +somewhere, and then rob me, but I caught hold of the collar of +his ragged driving-coat, close to where his wrinkled neck showed +sadly lean above his hunched-up back, and climbed on to the blue- +painted, curved, rickety scat. As we set off along Vozdvizhenka +Street, I noticed that the back of the drozhki was covered with a +strip of the same greenish material as that of which his coat was +made. For some reason or another this reassured me, and I no +longer felt nervous of being taken to a quiet spot and robbed. + +The sun had risen to a good height, and was gilding the cupolas +of the churches, when we arrived at the monastery. In the shade +the frost had not yet given, but in the open roadway muddy +rivulets of water were coursing along, and it was through fast- +thawing mire that the horse went clip-clopping his way. +Alighting, and entering the monastery grounds, I inquired of the +first monk whom I met where I could find the priest whom I was +seeking. + +"His cell is over there," replied the monk as he stopped a moment +and pointed towards a little building up to which a flight of +steps led. + +"I respectfully thank you," I said, and then fell to wondering +what all the monks (who at that moment began to come filing out +of the church) must be thinking of me as they glanced in my +direction. I was neither a grown-up nor a child, while my face +was unwashed, my hair unbrushed, my clothes tumbled, and my boots +unblacked and muddy. To what class of persons were the brethren +assigning me--for they stared at me hard enough? Nevertheless I +proceeded in the direction which the young priest had pointed out +to me. + +An old man with bushy grey eyebrows and a black cassock met me on +the narrow path to the cells, and asked me what I wanted. For a +brief moment I felt inclined to say "Nothing," and then run back +to the drozhki and drive away home; but, for all its beetling +brows, the face of the old man inspired confidence, and I merely +said that I wished to see the priest (whom I named). + +"Very well, young sir; I will take you to him," said the old man +as he turned round. Clearly he had guessed my errand at a stroke. +"The father is at matins at this moment, but he will soon be +back," and, opening a door, the old man led me through a neat +hall and corridor, all lined with clean matting, to a cell. + +"Please to wait here," he added, and then, with a kind, +reassuring glance, departed. + +The little room in which I found myself was of the smallest +possible dimensions, but extremely neat and clean. Its furniture +only consisted of a small table (covered with a cloth, and placed +between two equally small casement-windows, in which stood two +pots of geraniums), a stand of ikons, with a lamp suspended in +front of them, a bench, and two chairs. In one corner hung a wall +clock, with little flowers painted on its dial, and brass weights +to its chains, while upon two nails driven into a screen (which, +fastened to the ceiling with whitewashed pegs, probably concealed +the bed) hung a couple of cassocks. The windows looked out upon a +whitewashed wall, about two arshins distant, and in the space +between them there grew a small lilac-bush. + +Not a sound penetrated from without, and in the stillness the +measured, friendly stroke of the clock's pendulum seemed to beat +quite loudly. The instant that I found myself alone in this calm +retreat all other thoughts and recollections left my head as +completely as though they had never been there, and I subsided +into an inexpressibly pleasing kind of torpor. The rusty alpaca +cassocks with their frayed linings, the worn black leather +bindings of the books with their metal clasps, the dull-green +plants with their carefully watered leaves and soil, and, above +all, the abrupt, regular beat of the pendulum, all spoke to me +intimately of some new life hitherto unknown to me--a life of +unity and prayer, of calm, restful happiness. + +"The months, the years, may pass," I thought to myself, "but he +remains alone--always at peace, always knowing that his +conscience is pure before God, that his prayer will be heard by +Him." For fully half an hour I sat on that chair, trying not to +move, not even to breathe loudly, for fear I should mar the +harmony of the sounds which were telling me so much, and ever the +pendulum continued to beat the same--now a little louder to the +right, now a little softer to the left. + +VIII + +THE SECOND CONFESSION + +Suddenly the sound of the priest's footsteps roused me from this +reverie. + +"Good morning to you," he said as he smoothed his grey hair with +his hand. "What can I do for you?" + +I besought him to give me his blessing, and then kissed his +small, wizened hand with great fervour. After I had explained to +him my errand he said nothing, but moved away towards the ikons, +and began to read the exhortation: whereupon I overcame my shame, +and told him all that was in my heart. Finally he laid his hands +upon my head, and pronounced in his even, resonant voice the +words: "My son, may the blessing of Our Heavenly Father be upon +thee, and may He always preserve thee in faithfulness, loving- +kindness, and meekness. Amen." + +I was entirely happy. Tears of joy coursed down my face as I +kissed the hem of his cassock and then raised my head again. The +face of the priest expressed perfect tranquillity. So keenly did +I feel the joy of reconciliation that, fearing in any way to +dispel it, I took hasty leave of him, and, without looking to one +side of me or the other (in order that my attention might not be +distracted), left the grounds and re-entered the rickety, +battered drozhki. Yet the joltings of the vehicle and the variety +of objects which flitted past my eyes soon dissipated that +feeling, and I became filled with nothing but the idea that the +priest must have thought me the finest-spirited young man he had +ever met, or ever would meet, in the whole of his life. Indeed, I +reflected, there could not be many such as myself--of that I felt +sure, and the conviction produced in me the kind of complacency +which craves for self-communication to another. I had a great +desire to unbosom myself to some one, and as there was no one +else to speak to, I addressed myself to the cabman. + +"Was I very long gone? " I asked him. + +" No, not very long," he replied. He seemed to have grown more +cheerful under the influence of the sunshine. "Yet now it is a +good while past my horse's feeding-time. You see, I am a night +cabman." + +"Well, I only seemed to myself to be about a minute," I went on. +"Do you know what I went there for?" I added, changing my seat to +the well of the drozhki, so as to be nearer the driver. + +"What business is it of mine? I drive a fare where he tells me to +go," he replied. + +"Yes, but, all the same, what do you think I went there for?" I +persisted. + +"I expect some one you know is going to be buried there, so you +went to see about a plot for the grave." + +"No, no, my friend. Still, DO you know what I went there for?" + +"No, of course I cannot tell, barin," he repeated. + +His voice seemed to me so kind that I decided to edify him by +relating the cause of my expedition, and even telling him of the +feeling which I had experienced. + +"Shall I tell you?" I said. "Well, you see,"--and I told him all, +as well as inflicted upon him a description of my fine +sentiments. To this day I blush at the recollection. + +"Well, well!" said the cabman non-committally, and for a long +while afterwards he remained silent and motionless, except that +at intervals he adjusted the skirt of his coat each time that it +was jerked from beneath his leg by the joltings of his huge boot +on the drozhki's step. I felt sure that he must be thinking of me +even as the priest had done. That is to say, that he must be +thinking that no such fine-spirited young man existed in the +world as I. Suddenly he shot at me: + +"I tell you what, barin. You ought to keep God's affairs to +yourself." + +"What?" I said. + +"Those affairs of yours--they are God's business," he repeated, +mumbling the words with his toothless lips. + +"No, he has not understood me," I thought to myself, and said no +more to him till we reached home. + +Although it was not my original sense of reconciliation and +reverence, but only a sort of complacency at having experienced +such a sense, that lasted in me during the drive home (and that, +too, despite the distraction of the crowds of people who now +thronged the sunlit streets in every direction), I had no sooner +reached home than even my spurious complacency was shattered, for +I found that I had not the forty copecks wherewith to pay the +cabman! To the butler, Gabriel, I already owed a small debt, and +he refused to lend me any more. Seeing me twice run across the +courtyard in quest of the money, the cabman must have divined the +reason, for, leaping from his drozhki, he--notwithstanding that +he had seemed so kind--began to bawl aloud (with an evident +desire to punch my head) that people who do not pay for their +cab-rides are swindlers. + +None of my family were yet out of bed, so that, except for the +servants, there was no one from whom to borrow the forty copecks. +At length, on my most sacred, sacred word of honour to repay (a +word to which, as I could see from his face, he did not +altogether trust), Basil so far yielded to his fondness for me +and his remembrance of the many services I had done him as to pay +the cabman. Thus all my beautiful feelings ended in smoke. When I +went upstairs to dress for church and go to Communion with the +rest I found that my new clothes had not yet come home, and so I +could not wear them. Then I sinned headlong. Donning my other +suit, I went to Communion in a sad state of mental perturbation, +and filled with complete distrust of all my finer impulses. + +IX + +HOW I PREPARED MYSELF FOR THE EXAMINATIONS + +On the Thursday in Easter week Papa, my sister, Katenka, and Mimi +went away into the country, and no one remained in my +grandmother's great house but Woloda, St. Jerome, and myself. The +frame of mind which I had experienced on the day of my confession +and during my subsequent expedition to the monastery had now +completely passed away, and left behind it only a dim, though +pleasing, memory which daily became more and more submerged by +the impressions of this emancipated existence. + +The folio endorsed "Rules of My Life" lay concealed beneath a +pile of school-books. Although the idea of the possibility of +framing rules, for every occasion in my life and always letting +myself be guided by them still pleased me (since it appeared an +idea at once simple and magnificent, and I was determined to make +practical application of it), I seemed somehow to have forgotten +to put it into practice at once, and kept deferring doing so +until such and such a moment. At the same time, I took pleasure +in the thought that every idea which now entered my head could be +allotted precisely to one or other of my three sections of tasks +and duties--those for or to God, those for or to my neighbour, and +those for or to myself. "I can always refer everything to them," +I said to myself, "as well as the many, many other ideas which +occur to me on one subject or another." Yet at this period I +often asked myself, "Was I better and more truthful when I only +believed in the power of the human intellect, or am I more so +now, when I am losing the faculty of developing that power, and +am in doubt both as to its potency and as to its importance?" To +this I could return no positive answer. + +The sense of freedom, combined with the spring-like feeling of +vague expectation to which I have referred already, so unsettled +me that I could not keep myself in hand--could make none but the +sorriest of preparations for my University ordeal. Thus I was +busy in the schoolroom one morning, and fully aware that I must +work hard, seeing that to-morrow was the day of my examination in +a subject of which I had the two whole questions still to read +up; yet no sooner had a breath of spring come wafted through the +window than I felt as though there were something quite different +that I wished to recall to my memory. My hands laid down my book, +my feet began to move of themselves, and to set me walking up and +down the room, and my head felt as though some one had suddenly +touched in it a little spring and set some machine in motion--so +easily and swiftly and naturally did all sorts of pleasing +fancies of which I could catch no more than the radiancy begin +coursing through it. Thus one hour, two hours, elapsed +unperceived. Even if I sat down determinedly to my book, and +managed to concentrate my whole attention upon what I was +reading, suddenly there would sound in the corridor the footsteps +of a woman and the rustle of her dress. Instantly everything +would escape my mind, and I would find it impossible to remain +still any longer, however much I knew that the woman could only +be either Gasha or my grandmother's old sewing-maid moving about +in the corridor. "Yet suppose it should be SHE all at once?" I +would say to myself. "Suppose IT is beginning now, and I were to +lose it?" and, darting out into the corridor, I would find, each +time, that it was only Gasha. Yet for long enough afterwards I +could not recall my attention to my studies. A little spring had +been touched in my head, and a strange mental ferment started +afresh. Again, that evening I was sitting alone beside a tallow +candle in my room. Suddenly I looked up for a moment--to snuff +the candle, or to straighten myself in my chair--and at once +became aware of nothing but the darkness in the corners and the +blank of the open doorway. Then, I also became conscious how still +the house was, and felt as though I could do nothing else than go +on listening to that stillness, and gazing into the black square +of that open doorway, and gradually sinking into a brown study as +I sat there without moving. At intervals, however, I would get +up, and go downstairs, and begin wandering through the empty +rooms. Once I sat a long while in the small drawing-room as I +listened to Gasha playing "The Nightingale" (with two fingers) on +the piano in the large drawing-room, where a solitary candle +burned. Later, when the moon was bright, I felt obliged to get +out of bed and to lean out of the window, so that I might gaze +into the garden, and at the lighted roof of the Shaposnikoff +mansion, the straight tower of our parish church, and the dark +shadows of the fence and the lilac-bush where they lay black upon +the path. So long did I remain there that, when I at length +returned to bed, it was ten o'clock in the morning before I could +open my eyes again. + +In short, had it not been for the tutors who came to give me +lessons, as well as for St. Jerome (who at intervals, and very +grudgingly, applied a spur to my self-conceit) and, most of all, +for the desire to figure as "clever" in the eyes of my friend +Nechludoff (who looked upon distinctions in University +examinations as a matter of first-rate importance)--had it not +been for all these things, I say, the spring and my new freedom +would have combined to make me forget everything I had ever +learnt, and so to go through the examinations to no purpose +whatsoever. + +X + +THE EXAMINATION IN HISTORY + +ON the 16th of April I entered, for the first time, and under the +wing of St. Jerome, the great hall of the University. I had +driven there with St. Jerome in our smart phaeton and wearing the +first frockcoat of my life, while the whole of my other clothes-- +even down to my socks and linen--were new and of a grander sort. +When a Swiss waiter relieved me of my greatcoat, and I stood +before him in all the beauty of my attire, I felt almost sorry to +dazzle him so. Yet I had no sooner entered the bright, carpeted, +crowded hall, and caught sight of hundreds of other young men in +gymnasium [The Russian gymnasium = the English grammar or +secondary school.] uniforms or frockcoats (of whom but a few +threw me an indifferent glance), as well as, at the far end, of +some solemn-looking professors who were seated on chairs or +walking carelessly about among some tables, than I at once became +disabused of the notion that I should attract the general +attention, while the expression of my face, which at home, and +even in the vestibule of the University buildings, had denoted +only a kind of vague regret that I should have to present so +important and distinguished an appearance, became exchanged for +an expression of the most acute nervousness and dejection. +However, I soon picked up again when I perceived sitting at one +of the desks a very badly, untidily dressed gentleman who, +though not really old, was almost entirely grey. He was occupying +a seat quite at the back of the hall and a little apart from the +rest, so I hastened to sit down beside him, and then fell to +looking at the candidates for examination, and to forming +conclusions about them. Many different figures and faces were +there to be seen there; yet, in my opinion, they all seemed to +divide themselves into three classes. First of all, there were +youths like myself, attending for examination in the company of +their parents or tutors. Among such I could see the youngest Iwin +(accompanied by Frost) and Ilinka Grap (accompanied by his old +father). All youths of this class wore the early beginnings of +beards, sported prominent linen, sat quietly in their places, and +never opened the books and notebooks which they had brought with +them, but gazed at the professors and examination tables with +ill-concealed nervousness. The second class of candidates were +young men in gymnasium uniforms. Several of them had attained to +the dignity of shaving, and most of them knew one another. They +talked loudly, called the professors by their names and surnames, +occupied themselves in getting their subjects ready, exchanged +notebooks, climbed over desks, fetched themselves pies and +sandwiches from the vestibule, and ate them then and there merely +lowering their heads to the level of a desk for propriety's sake. +Lastly, the third class of candidates (which seemed a small one) +consisted of oldish men--some of them in frock coats, but the +majority in jackets, and with no linen to be seen. These +preserved a serious demeanour, sat by themselves, and had a very +dingy look. The man who had afforded me consolation by being +worse dressed than myself belonged to this class. Leaning forward +upon his elbows, and running his fingers through his grey, +dishevelled hair as he read some book or another, he had thrown +me only a momentary glance--and that not a very friendly one-- +from a pair of glittering eyes. Then, as I sat down, he had +frowned grimly, and stuck a shiny elbow out to prevent me from +coming any nearer. On the other hand, the gymnasium men were +over-sociable, and I felt rather afraid of their proximity. One +of them did not hesitate to thrust a book into my hands, saying, +"Give that to that fellow over there, will you?" while another +of them exclaimed as he pushed past me, "By your leave, young +fellow!" and a third made use of my shoulder as a prop when he +wanted to scramble over a desk. All this seemed to me a little +rough and unpleasant, for I looked upon myself as immensely +superior to such fellows, and considered that they ought not to +treat me with such familiarity. At length, the names began to be +called out. The gymnasium men walked out boldly, answered their +questions (apparently) well, and came back looking cheerful. My +own class of candidates were much more diffident, as well as +appeared to answer worse. Of the oldish men, some answered well, +and some very poorly. When the name "Semenoff " was called out my +neighbour with the grey hair and glittering eyes jostled me +roughly, stepped over my legs, and went up to one of the +examiners' tables. It was plain from the aspect of the professors +that he answered well and with assurance, yet, on returning to +his place, he did not wait to see where he was placed on the +list, but quietly collected his notebooks and departed. Several +times I shuddered at the sound of the voice calling out the +names, but my turn did not come in exact alphabetical order, +though already names had begun to be called beginning with "I." + +"Ikonin and Tenieff!" suddenly shouted some one from the +professors' end of the hall. + +"Go on, Ikonin! You are being called," said a tall, red-faced +gymnasium student near me. "But who is this BARtenieff or +MORtenieff or somebody? I don't know him." + +"It must be you," whispered St. Jerome loudly in my ear. + +"MY name is IRtenieff," I said to the red-faced student. "Do you +think that was the name they were calling out?" + +"Yes. Why on earth don't you go up? " he replied. "Lord, what a +dandy!" he added under his breath, yet not so quietly but that I +failed to hear the words as they came wafted to me from below the +desk. In front of me walked Ikonin--a tall young man of about +twenty-five, who was one of those whom I had classed as oldish +men. He wore a tight brown frockcoat and a blue satin tie, and +had wisps of flaxen hair carefully brushed over his collar in the +peasant style. His appearance had already caught my attention +when we were sitting among the desks, and had given me an +impression that he was not bad-looking. Also I had noticed that +he was very talkative. Yet what struck me most about his +physiognomy was a tuft, of queer red hairs which he had under his +chin, as well as, still more, a strange habit of continually +unbuttoning his waistcoat and scratching his chest under his +shirt. + +Behind the table to which we were summoned sat three Professors, +none of whom acknowledged our salutations. A youngish professor +was shuffling a bundle of tickets like a pack of cards; another +one, with a star on his frockcoat, was gazing hard at a gymnasium +student, who was repeating something at great speed about Charles +the Great, and adding to each of his sentences the word nakonetz +[= the English colloquialism "you know."] while a third one--an +old man in spectacles--proceeded to bend his head down as we +approached, and, peering at us through his glasses, pointed +silently to the tickets. I felt his glance go over both myself +and Ikonin, and also felt sure that something about us had +displeased him (perhaps it was Ikonin's red hairs), for, after +taking another look at the pair of us, he motioned impatiently to +us to be quick in taking our tickets. I felt vexed and offended-- +firstly, because none of the professors had responded to our +bows, and, secondly, because they evidently coupled me with +Ikonin under the one denomination of "candidates," and so were +condemning me in advance on account of Ikonin's red hairs. I took +my ticket boldly and made ready to answer, but the professor's +eye passed over my head and alighted upon Ikonin. Accordingly, I +occupied myself in reading my ticket. The questions printed on it +were all familiar to me, so, as I silently awaited my turn, I +gazed at what was passing near me, Ikonin seemed in no way +diffident--rather the reverse, for, in reaching for his ticket, +he threw his body half-way across the table. Then he gave his +long hair a shake, and rapidly conned over what was written on +his ticket. I think he had just opened his mouth to answer when +the professor with the star dismissed the gymnasium student with +a word of commendation, and then turned and looked at Ikonin. At +once the latter seemed taken back, and stopped short. For about +two minutes there was a dead silence. + +"Well?" said the professor in the spectacles. + +Once more Ikonin opened his mouth, and once more remained silent. + +" Come! You are not the only one to be examined. Do you mean to +answer or do you not?" said the youngish professor, but Ikonin +did not even look at him. He was gazing fixedly at his ticket and +uttered not a single word. The professor in the spectacles +scanned him through his glasses, then over them, then without +them (for, indeed, he had time to take them off, to wipe their +lenses carefully, and to replace them). Still not a word from +Ikonin. All at once, however, a smile spread itself over his +face, and he gave his long hair another shake. Next he reached +across the table, laid down his ticket, looked at each of the +professors in turn and then at myself, and finally, wheeling +round on his heels, made a gesture with his hand and returned to +the desks. The professors stared blankly at one another. + +"Bless the fellow!" said the youngish professor. "What an +original!" + +It was now my turn to move towards the table, but the professors +went on talking in undertones among themselves, as though they +were unaware of my presence. At the moment, I felt firmly +persuaded that the three of them were engrossed solely with the +question of whether I should merely PASS the examination or +whether I should pass it WELL, and that it was only swagger which +made them pretend that they did not care either way, and behave +as though they had not seen me. + +When at length the professor in the spectacles turned to me with +an air of indifference, and invited me to answer, I felt hurt, as +I looked at him, to think that he should have so undeceived me: +wherefore I answered brokenly at first. In time, however, things +came easier to my tongue, and, inasmuch as all the questions bore +upon Russian history (which I knew thoroughly), I ended with +eclat, and even went so far, in my desire to convince the +professors that I was not Ikonin and that they must not in anyway +confound me with him, as to offer to draw a second ticket. The +professor in the spectacles, however, merely nodded his head, +said "That will do," and marked something in his register. On +returning to the desks, I at once learnt from the gymnasium men +(who somehow seemed to know everything) that I had been placed +fifth. + +XI + +MY EXAMINATION IN MATHEMATICS + +AT the subsequent examinations, I made several new acquaintances +in addition to the Graps (whom I considered unworthy of my +notice) and Iwin (who for some reason or other avoided me). With +some of these new friends I grew quite intimate, and even Ikonin +plucked up sufficient courage to inform me, when we next met, +that he would have to undergo re-examination in history--the +reason for his failure this time being that the professor of that +faculty had never forgiven him for last year's examination, and +had, indeed, "almost killed" him for it. Semenoff (who was +destined for the same faculty as myself--the faculty of +mathematics) avoided every one up to the very close of +the examinations. Always leaning forward upon his elbows and +running his fingers through his grey hair, he sat silent and +alone. Nevertheless, when called up for examination in +mathematics (he had no companion to accompany him), he came out +second. The first place was taken by a student from the first +gymnasium--a tall, dark, lanky, pale-faced fellow who wore a +black folded cravat and had his cheeks and forehead dotted all +over with pimples. His hands were shapely and slender, but their +nails were so bitten to the quick that the finger-ends looked as +though they had been tied round with strips of thread. All this +seemed to me splendid, and wholly becoming to a student of the +first gymnasium. He spoke to every one, and we all made friends +with him. To me in particular his walk, his every movement, his +lips, his dark eyes, all seemed to have in them something +extraordinary and magnetic. + +On the day of the mathematical examination I arrived earlier than +usual at the hall. I knew the syllabus well, yet there were two +questions in the algebra which my tutor had managed to pass over, +and which were therefore quite unknown to me. If I remember +rightly, they were the Theory of Combinations and Newton's +Binomial. I seated myself on one of the back benches and pored +over the two questions, but, inasmuch as I was not accustomed to +working in a noisy room, and had even less time for preparation +than I had anticipated, I soon found it difficult to take in all +that I was reading. + +"Here he is. This way, Nechludoff," said Woloda's familiar voice +behind me. + +I turned and saw my brother and Dimitri--their gowns unbuttoned, +and their hands waving a greeting to me--threading their way +through the desks. A moment's glance would have sufficed to show +any one that they were second-course students--persons to whom +the University was as a second home. The mere look of their open +gowns expressed at once disdain for the "mere candidate" and a +knowledge that the "mere candidate's" soul was filled with envy +and admiration of them. I was charmed to think that every one +near me could now see that I knew two real second-course +students: wherefore I hastened to meet them half-way. + +Woloda, of course, could not help vaunting his superiority a +little. + +"Hullo, you smug!" he said. "Haven't you been examined yet?" + +"No." + +"Well, what are you reading? Aren't you sufficiently primed?" + +"Yes, except in two questions. I don't understand them at all." + +"Eh, what?"--and Woloda straightway began to expound to me +Newton's Binomial, but so rapidly and unintelligibly that, +suddenly reading in my eyes certain misgivings as to the +soundness of his knowledge, he glanced also at Dimitri's face. +Clearly, he saw the same misgivings there, for he blushed hotly, +though still continuing his involved explanations. + +"No; hold on, Woloda, and let me try and do it," put in Dimitri +at length, with a glance at the professors' corner as he seated +himself beside me. + +I could see that my friend was in the best of humours. This was +always the case with him when he was satisfied with himself, and +was one of the things in him which I liked best. Inasmuch as he +knew mathematics well and could speak clearly, he hammered the +question so thoroughly into my head that I can remember it to +this day. Hardly had he finished when St. Jerome said to me in a +loud whisper, "A vous, Nicolas," and I followed Ikonin out from +among the desks without having had an opportunity of going +through the OTHER question of which I was ignorant. At the table +which we now approached were seated two professors, while before +the blackboard stood a gymnasium student, who was working some +formula aloud, and knocking bits off the end of the chalk with +his too vigorous strokes. He even continued writing after one of +the Professors had said to him "Enough!" and bidden us draw our +tickets. "Suppose I get the Theory of Combinations?" I thought to +myself as my tremulous fingers took a ticket from among a bundle +wrapped in torn paper. Ikonin, for his part, reached across the +table with the same assurance, and the same sidelong movement of +his whole body, as he had done at the previous examination. +Taking the topmost ticket without troubling to make further +selection, he just glanced at it, and then frowned angrily. + +"I always draw this kind of thing," he muttered. + +I looked at mine. Horrors! It was the Theory of Combinations! + +"What have you got?" whispered Ikonin at this point. + +I showed him. + +"Oh, I know that," he said. + +"Will you make an exchange, then?" + +"No. Besides, it would be all the same for me if I did," he +contrived to whisper just as the professor called us up to the +blackboard. "I don't feel up to anything to-day." + +"Then everything is lost!" I thought to myself. Instead of the +brilliant result which I had anticipated I should be for ever +covered with shame--more so even than Ikonin! Suddenly, under the +very eyes of the professor, Ikonin turned to me, snatched my +ticket out of my hands, and handed me his own. I looked at his +ticket. It was Newton's Binomial! + +The professor was a youngish man, with a pleasant, clever +expression of face--an effect chiefly due to the prominence of +the lower part of his forehead. + +"What? Are you exchanging tickets, gentlemen?" he said. + +"No. He only gave me his to look at, professor," answered Ikonin-- +and, sure enough, the word "professor" was the last word that he +uttered there. Once again, he stepped backwards towards me from +the table, once again he looked at each of the professors in turn +and then at myself, once again he smiled faintly, and once again +he shrugged his shoulders as much as to say, "It is no use, my +good sirs." Then he returned to the desks. Subsequently, I learnt +that this was the third year he had vainly attempted to +matriculate. + +I answered my question well, for I had just read it up; and the +professor, kindly informing me that I had done even better than +was required, placed me fifth. + +XII + +MY EXAMINATION IN LATIN + +All went well until my examination in Latin. So far, a gymnasium +student stood first on the list, Semenoff second, and myself +third. On the strength of it I had begun to swagger a little, and +to think that, for all my youth, I was not to be despised. + +From the first day of the examinations, I had heard every one +speak with awe of the Professor of Latin, who appeared to be some +sort of a wild beast who battened on the financial ruin of young +men (of those, that is to say, who paid their own fees) and spoke +only in the Greek and Latin tongues. However, St. Jerome, who had +coached me in Latin, spoke encouragingly, and I myself thought +that, since I could translate Cicero and certain parts of Horace +without the aid of a lexicon, I should do no worse than the rest. +Yet things proved otherwise. All the morning the air had been +full of rumours concerning the tribulations of candidates who had +gone up before me: rumours of how one young fellow had been +accorded a nought, another one a single mark only, a third one +greeted with abuse and threatened with expulsion, and so forth. +Only Semenoff and the first gymnasium student had, as usual, gone +up quietly, and returned to their seats with five marks credited +to their names. Already I felt a prescience of disaster when +Ikonin and myself found ourselves summoned to the little table at +which the terrible professor sat in solitary grandeur. + +The terrible professor turned out to be a little thin, bilious- +looking man with hair long and greasy and a face expressive of +extraordinary sullenness. Handing Ikonin a copy of Cicero's +Orations, he bid him translate. To my great astonishment Ikonin +not only read off some of the Latin, but even managed to construe +a few lines to the professor's prompting. At the same time, +conscious of my superiority over such a feeble companion, I could +not help smiling a little, and even looking rather contemptuous, +when it came to a question of analysis, and Ikonin, as on +previous occasions, plunged into a silence which promised never +to end. I had hoped to please the professor by that knowing, +slightly sarcastic smile of mine, but, as a matter of fact, I +contrived to do quite the contrary. + +"Evidently you know better than he, since you are laughing," he +said to me in bad Russian. "Well, we shall see. Tell me the +answer, then." + +Later I learnt that the professor was Ikonin's guardian, and that +Ikonin actually lived with him. I lost no time in answering the +question in syntax which had been put to Ikonin, but the +professor only pulled a long face and turned away from me. + +"Well, your turn will come presently, and then we shall see how +much you know," he remarked, without looking at me, but +proceeding to explain to Ikonin the point on which he had +questioned him. + +"That will do," he added, and I saw him put down four marks to +Ikonin in his register. "Come!" I thought to myself. "He cannot +be so strict after all." + +When Ikonin had taken his departure the professor spent fully +five minutes--five minutes which seemed to me five hours--in +setting his books and tickets in order, in blowing his nose, in +adjusting and sprawling about on his chair, in gazing down the +hall, and in looking here, there, and everywhere--in doing +everything, in fact, except once letting his eye rest upon me. +Yet even that amount of dissimulation did not seem to satisfy +him, for he next opened a book, and pretended to read it, for all +the world as though I were not there at all. I moved a little +nearer him, and gave a cough. + +"Ah, yes! You too, of course! Well, translate me something," he +remarked, handing me a book of some kind. "But no; you had better +take this," and, turning over the leaves of a Horace, he +indicated to me a passage which I should never have imagined +possible of translation. + +"I have not prepared this," I said. + +"Oh! Then you only wish to answer things which you have got by +heart, do you? Indeed? No, no; translate me that." + +I started to grope for the meaning of the passage, but each +questioning look which I threw at the professor was met by a +shake of the head, a profound sigh, and an exclamation of "No, +no!" Finally he banged the book to with such a snap that he +caught his finger between the covers. Angrily releasing it, he +handed me a ticket containing questions in grammar, and, flinging +himself back in his chair, maintained a menacing silence. I +should have tried to answer the questions had not the expression +of his face so clogged my tongue that nothing seemed to come from +it right. + +"No, no! That's not it at all!" he suddenly exclaimed in his +horrible accent as he altered his posture to one of leaning +forward upon the table and playing with the gold signet-ring +which was nearly slipping from the little finger of his left +hand. "That is not the way to prepare for serious study, my good +sir. Fellows like yourself think that, once they have a gown and +a blue collar to their backs, they have reached the summit of all +things and become students. No, no, my dear sir. A subject needs +to be studied FUNDAMENTALLY," and so on, and so on. + +During this speech (which was uttered with a clipped sort of +intonation) I went on staring dully at his lowered eyelids. +Beginning with a fear lest I should lose my place as third on the +list, I went on to fear lest I should pass at all. Next, these +feelings became reinforced by a sense of injustice, injured self- +respect, and unmerited humiliation, while the contempt which I +felt for the professor as some one not quite (according to my +ideas) "comme il faut"--a fact which I deduced from the +shortness, strength, and roundness of his nails--flared up in me +more and more and turned all my other feelings to sheer +animosity. Happening, presently, to glance at me, and to note my +quivering lips and tear-filled eyes, he seemed to interpret my +agitation as a desire to be accorded my marks and dismissed: +wherefore, with an air of relenting, he said (in the presence of +another professor who had just approached): + +"Very well; I will accord you a 'pass'" (which signified two +marks), "although you do not deserve it. I do so simply out of +consideration for your youth, and in the hope that, when you +begin your University career, you will learn to be less light- +minded." + +The concluding phrase, uttered in the hearing of the other +professor (who at once turned his eyes upon me, as though +remarking, "There! You see, young man!") completed my +discomfiture. For a moment, a mist swam before my eyes--a mist in +which the terrible professor seemed to be far away, as he sat at +his table while for an instant a wild idea danced through my +brain. "What if I DID do such a thing?" I thought to myself. +"What would come of it?" However, I did not do the thing in +question, but, on the contrary, made a bow of peculiar reverence +to each of the professors, and with a slight smile on my face-- +presumably the same smile as that with which I had derided +Ikonin--turned away from the table. + +This piece of unfairness affected me so powerfully at the time +that, had I been a free agent, I should have attended for no more +examinations. My ambition was gone (since now I could not +possibly be third), and I therefore let the other examinations +pass without any exertion, or even agitation, on my part. In the +general list I still stood fourth, but that failed to interest +me, since I had reasoned things out to myself, and come to the +conclusion that to try for first place was stupid--even "bad +form:" that, in fact, it was better to pass neither very well nor +very badly, as Woloda had done. This attitude I decided to +maintain throughout the whole of my University career, +notwithstanding that it was the first point on which my opinion +had differed from that of my friend Dimitri. + +Yet, to tell the truth, my thoughts were already turning towards +a uniform, a "mortar-board," and the possession of a drozhki of +my own, a room of my own, and, above all, freedom of my own. And +certainly the prospect had its charm. + + +XIII + +I BECOME GROWN-UP + +When, on May 8th, I returned home from the final, the divinity, +examination, I found my acquaintance, the foreman from +Rozonoff's, awaiting me. He had called once before to fit me for +my gown, as well as for a tunic of glossy black cloth (the lapels +of which were, on that occasion, only sketched in chalk), but to- +day he had come to bring me the clothes in their finished state, +with their gilt buttons wrapped in tissue paper. + +Donning the garments, and finding them splendid (notwithstanding +that St. Jerome assured me that the back of the tunic wrinkled +badly), I went downstairs with a complacent smile which I was +powerless to banish from my face, and sought Woloda, trying the +while to affect unconsciousness of the admiring looks of the +servants, who came darting out of the hall and corridor to gaze +upon me with ravished eyes. Gabriel, the butler, overtook me in +the salle, and, after congratulating me with much empressement, +handed me, according to instructions from my father, four bank- +notes, as well as informed me that Papa had also given orders +that, from that day forth, the groom Kuzma, the phaeton, and the +bay horse Krassavchik were to be entirely at my disposal. I was +so overjoyed at this not altogether expected good-fortune that I +could no longer feign indifference in Gabriel's presence, but, +flustered and panting, said the first thing which came into my +head ("Krassavchik is a splendid trotter," I think it was). Then, +catching sight of the various heads protruding from the doors of +the hall and corridor, I felt that I could bear no more, and set +off running at full speed across the salle, dressed as I was in +the new tunic, with its shining gilt buttons. Just as I burst +into Woloda's room, I heard behind me the voices of Dubkoff and +Nechludoff, who had come to congratulate me, as well as to +propose a dinner somewhere and the drinking of much champagne in +honour of my matriculation. Dimitri informed me that, though he +did not care for champagne, he would nevertheless join us that +evening and drink my health, while Dubkoff remarked that I looked +almost like a colonel, and Woloda omitted to congratulate me at +all, merely saying in an acid way that he supposed we should now-- +i.e. in two days time--be off into the country. The truth was +that Woloda, though pleased at my matriculation, did not +altogether like my becoming as grown-up as himself. St. Jerome, +who also joined us at this moment, said in a very pompous manner +that his duties were now ended, and that, although he did not +know whether they had been well done or ill, at least he had done +his best, and must depart to-morrow to his Count's. In replying +to their various remarks I could feel, in spite of myself, a +pleased, agreeable, faintly self-sufficient smile playing over my +countenance, as well as could remark that that smile, +communicated itself to those to whom I was speaking. + +So here was I without a tutor, yet with my own private drozhki, +my name printed on the list of students, a sword and belt of my +own, and a chance of an occasional salute from officials! In +short, I was grownup and, I suppose, happy. + +Finally, we arranged to go out and dine at five o'clock, but since +Woloda presently went off to Dubkoff's, and Dimitri disappeared +in his usual fashion (saying that there was something he MUST do +before dinner), I was left with two whole hours still at my +disposal. For a time I walked through the rooms of the house, and +looked at myself in all the mirrors--firstly with the tunic +buttoned, then with it unbuttoned, and lastly with only the top +button fastened. Each time it looked splendid. Eventually, though +anxious not to show any excess of delight, I found myself unable +to refrain from crossing over to the coach-house and stables to +gaze at Krassovchik, Kuzma, and the drozhki. Then I returned and +once more began my tour of the rooms, where I looked at myself in +all the mirrors as before, and counted my money over in my +pocket--my face smiling happily the while. Yet not an hour had +elapsed before I began to feel slightly ennuye--to feel a shade +of regret that no one was present to see me in my splendid +position. I began to long for life and movement, and so sent out +orders for the drozhki to be got ready, since I had made up my +mind to drive to the Kuznetski Bridge and make some purchases. + +In this connection I recalled how, after matriculating, Woloda +had gone and bought himself a lithograph of horses by Victor Adam +and some pipes and tobacco: wherefore I felt that I too must do +the same. Amid glances showered upon me from every side, and with +the sunlight reflected from my buttons, cap-badge, and sword, I +drove to the Kuznetski Bridge, where, halting at a Picture shop, +I entered it with my eyes looking to every side. It was not +precisely horses by Adam which I meant to buy, since I did not +wish to be accused of too closely imitating Woloda; wherefore, +out of shame for causing the obsequious shopmen such agitation as +I appeared to do, I made a hasty selection, and pitched upon a +water-colour of a woman's head which I saw displayed in the +window--price twenty roubles. Yet no sooner had I paid the twenty +roubles over the counter than my heart smote me for having put +two such beautifully dressed shop-assistants to so much trouble +for such a trifle. Moreover, I fancied that they were regarding +me with some disdain. Accordingly, in my desire to show them what +manner of man I was, I turned my attention to a silver trifle +which I saw displayed in a show-case, and, recognising that it +was a porte-crayon (price eighteen roubles), requested that it +should forthwith be wrapped in paper for me. Next, the money +paid, and the information acquired that splendid pipes and +tobacco were to be obtained in an adjacent emporium, I bowed to +the two shopmen politely, and issued into the street with the +picture under my arm. At the shop next door (which had painted on +its sign-board a negro smoking a cigar) I bought (likewise out of +a desire to imitate no one) some Turkish tobacco, a Stamboul +hookah, and two pipes. On coming out of the shop, I had just +entered the drozhki when I caught sight of Semenoff, who was +walking hurriedly along the pavement with his head bent down. +Vexed that he should not have recognised me, I called out to him +pretty loudly, "Hold on a minute!" and, whipping up the drozhki, +soon overtook him. + +"How do you do?" I said. + +"My respects to you," he replied, but without stopping. + +"Why are you not in your University uniform?" I next inquired. + +At this he stopped short with a frown, and parted his white teeth +as though the sun were hurting his eyes. The next moment, +however, he threw a glance of studied indifference at my drozhki +and uniform, and continued on his way. + +From the Kuznetski Bridge, I drove to a confectioner's in +Tverskaia Street, and, much as I should have liked it to be +supposed that it was the newspapers which most interested me, I +had no choice but to begin falling upon tartlet after tartlet. In +fact, for all my bashfulness before a gentleman who kept +regarding me with some curiosity from behind a newspaper, I ate +with great swiftness a tartlet of each of the eight different +sorts which the confectioner kept. + +On reaching home, I experienced a slight touch of stomach-ache, +but paid no attention to it, and set to work to inspect my +purchases. Of these, the picture so much displeased me that, +instead of having it framed and hung in my room, as Woloda had +done with his, I took pains to hide it behind a chest of drawers, +where no one could see it. Likewise, though I also found the +porte-crayon distasteful, I was able, as I laid it on my table, +to comfort myself with the thought that it was at least a SILVER +article--so much capital, as it were--and likely to be very +useful to a student. As for the smoking things, I decided to put +them into use at once, and try their capabilities. + +Unsealing the four packages, and carefully filling the Stamboul +pipe with some fine-cut, reddish-yellow Turkish tobacco, I +applied a hot cinder to it, and, taking the mouthpiece between my +first and second fingers (a position of the hand which greatly +caught my fancy), started to inhale the smoke. + +The smell of the tobacco seemed delightful, yet something burnt +my mouth and caught me by the breath. Nevertheless, I hardened my +heart, and continued to draw abundant fumes into my interior. +Then I tried blowing rings and retaining the smoke. Soon the room +became filled with blue vapours, while the pipe started to +crackle and the tobacco to fly out in sparks. Presently, also, I +began to feel a smarting in my mouth and a giddiness in my head. +Accordingly, I was on the point of stopping and going to look at +myself and my pipe in the mirror, when, to my surprise, I found +myself staggering about. The room was whirling round and round, +and as I peered into the mirror (which I reached only with some +difficulty) I perceived that my face was as white as a sheet. +Hardly had I thrown myself down upon a sofa when such nausea and +faintness swept over me that, making up my mind that the pipe had +proved my death, I expected every moment to expire. Terribly +frightened, I tried to call out for some one to come and help me, +and to send for the doctor. + +However, this panic of mine did not last long, for I soon +understood what the matter with me was, and remained lying on the +sofa with a racking headache and my limbs relaxed as I stared +dully at the stamp on the package of tobacco, the Pipe-tube +coiled on the floor, and the odds and ends of tobacco and +confectioner's tartlets which were littered about. "Truly," I +thought to myself in my dejection and disillusionment, "I cannot +be quite grown-up if I cannot smoke as other fellows do, and +should be fated never to hold a chibouk between my first and +second fingers, or to inhale and puff smoke through a flaxen +moustache!" + +When Dimitri called for me at five o'clock, he found me in this +unpleasant predicament. After drinking a glass of water, however, +I felt nearly recovered, and ready to go with him. + +"So much for your trying to smoke!" said he as he gazed at the +remnants of my debauch. "It is a silly thing to do, and waste of +money as well. I long ago promised myself never to smoke. But +come along; we have to call for Dubkoff." + +XIV + +HOW WOLODA AND DUBKOFF AMUSED THEMSELVES + +THE moment that Dimitri entered my room I perceived from his +face, manner of walking, and the signs which, in him, denoted +ill-humour--a blinking of the eyes and a grim holding of his head +to one side, as though to straighten his collar--that he was in +the coldly-correct frame of mind which was his when he felt +dissatisfied with himself. It was a frame of mind, too, which +always produced a chilling effect upon my feelings towards him. +Of late I had begun to observe and appraise my friend's character +a little more, but our friendship had in no way suffered from +that, since it was still too young and strong for me to be able +to look upon Dimitri as anything but perfect, no matter in what +light I regarded him. In him there were two personalities, both +of which I thought beautiful. One, which I loved devotedly, was +kind, mild, forgiving, gay, and conscious of being those various +things. When he was in this frame of mind his whole exterior, the +very tone of his voice, his every movement, appeared to say: "I +am kind and good-natured, and rejoice in being so, and every one +can see that I so rejoice." The other of his two personalities-- +one which I had only just begun to apprehend, and before the +majesty of which I bowed in spirit--was that of a man who was +cold, stern to himself and to others, proud, religious to the +point of fanaticism, and pedantically moral. At the present +moment he was, as I say, this second personality. + +With that frankness which constituted a necessary condition of +our relations I told him, as soon as we entered the drozhki, how +much it depressed and hurt me to see him, on this my fete-day in +a frame of mind so irksome and disagreeable to me. + +"What has upset you so?" I asked him. "Will you not tell me?" + +"My dear Nicolas," was his slow reply as he gave his head a +nervous twitch to one side and blinked his eyes, "since I have +given you my word never to conceal anything from you, you have no +reason to suspect me of secretiveness. One cannot always be in +exactly the same mood, and if I seem at all put out, that is all +there is to say about it." + +"What a marvellously open, honourable character his is!" I +thought to myself, and dropped the subject. + +We drove the rest of the way to Dubkoff's in silence. Dubkoff's +flat was an unusually fine one--or, at all events, so it seemed +to me. Everywhere were rugs, pictures, gardenias, striped +hangings, photographs, and curved settees, while on the walls +hung guns, pistols, pouches, and the mounted heads of wild +beasts. It was the appearance of this apartment which made me +aware whom, it was that Woloda had imitated in the scheme of his +own sitting-room. We found Dubkoff and Woloda engaged in cards, +while seated also at the table, and watching the game with close +attention, was a gentleman whom I did not know, but who appeared +to be of no great importance, judging by the modesty of his +attitude. Dubkoff himself was in a silk dressing-gown and soft +slippers, while Woloda--seated opposite him on a divan--was in his +shirtsleeves, as well as (to judge by his flushed face and the +impatient, cursory glance which he gave us for a second as he +looked up from the cards) much taken up with the game. On seeing +me, he reddened still more. + +"Well, it is for you to deal," he remarked to Dubkoff. In an +instant I divined that he did not altogether relish my becoming +acquainted with the fact that he gambled. Yet his expression had +nothing in it of confusion--only a look which seemed to me to say: +"Yes, I play cards, and if you are surprised at that, it is only +because you are so young. There is nothing wrong about it--it is +a necessity at our age." Yes, I at once divined and understood +that. + +Instead of dealing, however, Dubkoff rose and shook hands with +us; after which he bade us both be seated, and then offered us +pipes, which we declined. + +"Here is our DIPLOMAT, then--the hero of the day!" he said to me, +"Good Lord! how you look like a colonel!" + +"H-m!" I muttered in reply, though once more feeling a complacent +smile overspread my countenance. + +I stood in that awe of Dubkoff which a sixteen-year-old boy +naturally feels for a twenty-seven-year-old man of whom his +elders say that he is a very clever young man who can dance well +and speak French, and who, though secretly despising one's youth, +endeavours to conceal the fact. Yet, despite my respect for him, +I somehow found it difficult and uncomfortable, throughout my +acquaintanceship with him, to look him in the eyes, I have since +remarked that there are three kinds of men whom I cannot face +easily, namely those who are much better than myself, those who +are much worse, and those between whom and myself there is a +mutual determination not to mention some particular thing of +which we are both aware. Dubkoff may have been a much better +fellow than myself, or he may have been a much worse; but the +point was that he lied very frequently without recognising the +fact that I was aware of his doing so, yet had determined not to +mention it. + +"Let us play another round," said Woloda, hunching one shoulder +after the manner of Papa, and reshuffling the cards. + +"How persistent you are!" said Dubkoff. "We can play all we want +to afterwards. Well, one more round, then." + +During the play, I looked at their hands. Woloda's hands were +large and red, whilst in the crook of the thumb and the way in +which the other fingers curved themselves round the cards as he +held them they so exactly resembled Papa's that now and then I +could not help thinking that Woloda purposely held the cards thus +so as to look the more like a grownup. Yet the next moment, +looking at his face, I could see that he had not a thought in his +mind beyond the game. Dubkoff's hands, on the contrary, were +small, puffy, and inclined to clench themselves, as well as +extremely neat and small-fingered. They were just the kind of +hands which generally display rings, and which are most to be +seen on persons who are both inclined to use them and fond of +objets de vertu. + +Woloda must have lost, for the gentleman who was watching the +play remarked that Vladimir Petrovitch had terribly bad luck, +while Dubkoff reached for a note book, wrote something in it, and +then, showing Woloda what he had written, said: + +"Is that right?" + +"Yes." said Woloda, glancing with feigned carelessness at the +note book. "Now let us go." + +Woloda took Dubkoff, and I gave Dimitri a lift in my drozhki. + +"What were they playing at?" I inquired of Dimitri. + +"At piquet. It is a stupid game. In fact, all such games are +stupid." + +"And were they playing for much?" + +"No, not very much, but more than they ought to." + +"Do you ever play yourself?" + +"No; I swore never to do so; but Dubkoff will play with any one +he can get hold of." + +"He ought not to do that," I remarked. "So Woloda does not play +so well as he does?" + +"Perhaps Dubkoff ought not to, as you say, yet there is nothing +especially bad about it all. He likes playing, and plays well, +but he is a good fellow all the same." + +"I had no idea of this," I said. + +"We must not think ill of him," concluded Dimitri, "since he is a +simply splendid fellow. I like him very much, and always shall +like him, in spite of his weakness." + +For some reason or another the idea occurred to me that, just +BECAUSE Dimitri stuck up so stoutly for Dubkoff, he neither liked +nor respected him in reality, but was determined, out of +stubbornness and a desire not to be accused of inconstancy, never +to own to the fact. He was one of those people who love their +friends their life long, not so much because those friends remain +always dear to them, as because, having once--possibly +mistakenly--liked a person, they look upon it as dishonourable to +cease ever to do so. + +XV + +I AM FETED AT DINNER + +Dubkoff and Woloda knew every one at the restaurant by name, and +every one, from the waiters to the proprietor, paid them great +respect. No time was lost in allotting us a private room, where a +bottle of iced champagne-upon which I tried to look with as much +indifference as I could--stood ready waiting for us, and where we +were served with a most wonderful repast selected by Dubkoff from +the French menu. The meal went off most gaily and agreeably, +notwithstanding that Dubkoff, as usual, told us blood-curdling +tales of doubtful veracity (among others, a tale of how his +grandmother once shot dead three robbers who were attacking her-- +a recital at which I blushed, closed my eyes, and turned away +from the narrator), and that Woloda reddened visibly whenever I +opened my mouth to speak--which was the more uncalled for on his +part, seeing that never once, so far as I can remember, did I say +anything shameful. After we had been given champagne, every one +congratulated me, and I drank "hands across" with Dimitri and +Dubkoff, and wished them joy. Since, however, I did not know to +whom the bottle of champagne belonged (it was explained to me +later that it was common property), I considered that, in return, +I ought to treat my friends out of the money which I had never +ceased to finger in my pocket. Accordingly, I stealthily extracted +a ten-rouble note, and, beckoning the waiter to my side, handed +him the money, and told him in a whisper (yet not so softly but +that every one could hear me, seeing that every one was staring +at me in dead silence) to "bring, if you please, a half-bottle of +champagne." At this Woloda reddened again, and began to fidget so +violently, and to gaze upon myself and every one else with such a +distracted air, that I felt sure I had somehow put my foot in it. +However, the half-bottle came, and we drank it with great gusto. +After that, things went on merrily. Dubkoff continued his +unending fairy tales, while Woloda also told funny stories--and +told them well, too--in a way I should never have credited him: so +that our laughter rang long and loud. Their best efforts lay in +imitation, and in variants of a certain well-known saw. "Have you +ever been abroad?" one would say to the other, for instance. +"No," the one interrogated would reply, "but my brother plays the +fiddle." Such perfection had the pair attained in this species of +comic absurdity that they could answer any question by its means, +while they would also endeavour to unite two absolutely +unconnected matters without a previous question having been asked +at all, yet say everything with a perfectly serious face and +produce a most comic effect. I too began to try to be funny, but +as soon as ever I spoke they either looked at me askance or did +not look at me until I had finished: so that my anecdotes fell +flat. Yet, though Dubkoff always remarked, "Our DIPLOMAT is +lying, brother," I felt so exhilarated with the champagne and the +company of my elders that the remark scarcely touched me. Only +Dimitri, though he drank level with the rest of us, continued in +the same severe, serious frame of mind--a fact which put a +certain check upon the general hilarity. + +"Now, look here, gentlemen," said Dubkoff at last. "After dinner +we ought to take the DIPLOMAT in hand. How would it be for him to +go with us to see Auntie? There we could put him through his +paces." + +"Ah, but Nechludoff will not go there," objected Woloda. + +"O unbearable, insupportable man of quiet habits that you are!" +cried Dubkoff, turning to Dimitri. "Yet come with us, and you +shall see what an excellent lady my dear Auntie is." + +"I will neither go myself nor let him go," replied Dimitri. + +"Let whom go? The DIPLOMAT? Why, you yourself saw how he +brightened up at the very mention of Auntie." + +"It is not so much that I WILL NOT LET HIM go," continued +Dimitri, rising and beginning to pace the room without looking at +me, "as that I neither wish him nor advise him to go. He is not a +child now, and if he must go he can go alone--without you. Surely +you are ashamed of this, Dubkoff?--ashamed of always wanting +others to do all the wrong things that you yourself do?" + +"But what is there so very wrong in my inviting you all to come +and take a cup of tea with my Aunt?" said Dubkoff, with a wink at +Woloda. "If you don't like us going, it is your affair; yet we +are going all the same. Are you coming, Woloda?" + +"Yes, yes," assented Woloda. "We can go there, and then return to +my rooms and continue our piquet." + +"Do you want to go with them or not?" said Dimitri, approaching +me. + +"No," I replied, at the same time making room for him to sit down +beside me on the divan. "I did not wish to go in any case, and +since you advise me not to, nothing on earth will make me go now. +Yet," I added a moment later, "I cannot honestly say that I have +NO desire to go. All I say is that I am glad I am not going." + +"That is right," he said. "Live your own life, and do not dance +to any one's piping. That is the better way." + +This little tiff not only failed to mar our hilarity, but even +increased it. Dimitri suddenly reverted to the kindly mood which +I loved best--so great (as I afterwards remarked on more than one +occasion) was the influence which the consciousness of having +done a good deed exercised upon him. At the present moment the +source of his satisfaction was the fact that he had stopped my +expedition to "Auntie's." He grew extraordinarily gay, called for +another bottle of champagne (which was against his rules), +invited some one who was a perfect stranger into our room, plied +him with wine, sang "Gaudeamus igitur," requested every one to +join him in the chorus, and proposed that we should and rink at +the Sokolniki. [Mews.] + +"Let us enjoy ourselves to-night," he said with a laugh. "It is +in honour of his matriculation that you now see me getting drunk +for the first time in my life." + +Yet somehow this merriment sat ill upon him. He was like some +good-natured father or tutor who is pleased with his young +charges, and lets himself go for their amusement, yet at the same +time tries to show them that one can enjoy oneself decently and +in an honourable manner. However, his unexpected gaiety had an +infectious influence upon myself and my companions, and the more +so because each of us had now drunk about half a bottle of +champagne. + +It was in this pleasing frame of mind that I went out into the +main salon to smoke a cigarette which Dubkoff had given me. In +rising I noticed that my head seemed to swim a little, and that +my legs and arms retained their natural positions only when I +bent my thoughts determinedly upon them. At other moments my legs +would deviate from the straight line, and my arms describe +strange gestures. I concentrated my whole attention upon the +members in question, forced my hands first to raise themselves +and button my tunic, and then to smooth my hair (though they +ruffled my locks in doing so), and lastly commanded my legs to +march me to the door--a function which they duly performed, +though at one time with too much reluctance, and at another with +too much ABANDON (the left leg, in particular, coming to a halt +every moment on tiptoe). Some one called out to me, "Where are +you going to? They will bring you a cigar-light directly," but I +guessed the voice to be Woloda's, and, feeling satisfied, +somehow, that I had succeeded in divining the fact, merely smiled +airily in reply, and continued on my way. + +XVI + +THE QUARREL + +In the main salon I perceived sitting at a small table a short, +squat gentleman of the professional type. He had a red moustache, +and was engaged in eating something or another, while by his side +sat a tall, clean-shaven individual with whom he was carrying on +a conversation in French. Somehow the aspect of these two persons +displeased me; yet I decided, for all that, to light my cigarette +at the candelabrum which was standing before them. Looking from +side to side, to avoid meeting their gaze, I approached the +table, and applied my cigarette to the flame. When it was fairly +alight, I involuntarily threw a glance at the gentleman who was +eating, and found his grey eyes fixed upon me with an expression +of intense displeasure. Just as I was turning away his red +moustache moved a little, and he said in French: + +"I do not like people to smoke when I am dining, my good sir." + +I murmured something inaudible. + +"No, I do not like it at all," he went on sternly, and with a +glance at his clean-shaven companion, as though inviting him to +admire the way in which he was about to deal with me. "I do not +like it, my good sir, nor do I like people who have the impudence +to puff their smoke up one's very nose." + +By this time I had gathered that it was myself he was scolding, +and at first felt as though I had been altogether in the wrong, + +"I did not mean to inconvenience you," I said. + +"Well, if you did not suppose you were being impertinent, at +least I did! You are a cad, young sir!" he shouted in reply. + +"But what right have you to shout at me like that?" I exclaimed, +feeling that it was now HE that was insulting ME, and growing +angry accordingly. + +"This much right," he replied, "that I never allow myself to be +overlooked by any one, and that I always teach young fellows like +yourself their manners. What is your name, young sir, and where +do you live?" + +At this I felt so hurt that my teeth chattered, and I felt as +though I were choking. Yet all the while I was conscious of being +in the wrong, and so, instead of offering any further rudeness to +the offended one, humbly told him my name and address. + +"And MY name, young sir," he returned, "is Kolpikoff, and I will +trouble you to be more polite to me in future.--However, You will +hear from me again" ("vous aurez de mes nouvelles"--the +conversation had been carried on wholly in French), was his +concluding remark. + +To this I replied, "I shall be delighted," with an infusion of as +much hauteur as I could muster into my tone. Then, turning on my +heel, I returned with my cigarette--which had meanwhile gone out-- +to our own room. + +I said nothing, either to my brother or my friends, about what +had happened (and the more so because they were at that moment +engaged in a dispute of their own), but sat down in a corner to +think over the strange affair. The words, "You are a cad, young +sir," vexed me more and more the longer that they sounded in my +ears. My tipsiness was gone now, and, in considering my conduct +during the dispute, the uncomfortable thought came over me that I +had behaved like a coward. + +"Yet what right had he to attack me?" I reflected. "Why did he +not simply intimate to me that I was annoying him? After all, it +may have been he that was in the wrong. Why, too, when he called +me a young cad, did I not say to him, 'A cad, my good sir, is one +who takes offence'? Or why did I not simply tell him to hold his +tongue? That would have been the better course. Or why did I not +challenge him to a duel? No, I did none of those things, but +swallowed his insults like a wretched coward." + +Still the words, "You are a cad, young sir," kept sounding in my +ears with maddening iteration. "I cannot leave things as they +are," I at length decided as I rose to my feet with the fixed +intention of returning to the gentleman and saying something +outrageous to him--perhaps, also, of breaking the candelabrum +over his head if occasion offered. Yet, though I considered the +advisability of this last measure with some pleasure, it was not +without a good deal of trepidation that I re-entered the main +salon. As luck would have it, M. Kolpikoff was no longer there, +but only a waiter engaged in clearing the table. For a moment I +felt like telling the waiter the whole story, and explaining to +him my innocence in the matter, but for some reason or another I +thought better of it, and once more returned, in the same hazy +condition of mind, to our own room. + +"What has become of our DIPLOMAT?" Dubkoff was just saying. "Upon +him now hang the fortunes of Europe." + +"Oh, leave me alone," I said, turning moodily away. Then, as I +paced the room, something made me begin to think that Dubkoff was +not altogether a good fellow. "There is nothing very much to +admire in his eternal jokes and his nickname of 'DIPLOMAT,'" I +reflected. "All he thinks about is to win money from Woloda and +to go and see his 'Auntie.' There is nothing very nice in all +that. Besides, everything he says has a touch of blackguardism in +it, and he is forever trying to make people laugh. In my opinion +he is simply stupid when he is not absolutely a brute." I spent +about five minutes in these reflections, and felt my enmity +towards Dubkoff continually increasing. For his part, he took no +notice of me, and that angered me the more. I actually felt vexed +with Woloda and Dimitri because they went on talking to him. + +"I tell you what, gentlemen: the DIPLOMAT ought to be +christened," said Dubkoff suddenly, with a glance and a smile +which seemed to me derisive, and even treacherous. "Yet, 0 Lord, +what a poor specimen he is!" + +"You yourself ought to be christened, and you yourself are a +sorry specimen!" I retorted with an evil smile, and actually +forgetting to address him as "thou." [In Russian as in French, +the second person singular is the form of speech used between +intimate friends.] + +This reply evidently surprised Dubkoff, but he turned away good- +humouredly, and went on talking to Woloda and Dimitri. I tried to +edge myself into the conversation, but, since I felt that I could +not keep it up, I soon returned to my corner, and remained there +until we left. + +When the bill had been paid and wraps were being put on, Dubkoff +turned to Dimitri and said: "Whither are Orestes and Pedalion +going now? Home, I suppose, to talk about love. Well, let US go +and see my dear Auntie. That will be far more entertaining than +your sour company." + +"How dare you speak like that, and laugh at us?" I burst out as I +approached him with clenched fists. "How dare you laugh at +feelings which you do not understand? I will not have you do it! +Hold your tongue!" At this point I had to hold my own, for I did +not know what to say next, and was, moreover, out of breath with +excitement. At first Dubkoff was taken aback, but presently he +tried to laugh it off, and to take it as a joke. Finally I was +surprised to see him look crestfallen, and lower his eyes. + +"I NEVER laugh at you or your feelings. It is merely my way of +speaking," he said evasively. + +"Indeed?" I cried; yet the next moment I felt ashamed of myself +and sorry for him, since his flushed, downcast face had in it no +other expression than one of genuine pain. + +"What is the matter with you?" said Woloda and Dimitri +simultaneously. "No one was trying to insult you." + +"Yes, he DID try to insult me!" I replied. + +"What an extraordinary fellow your brother is!" said Dubkoff to +Woloda. At that moment he was passing out of the door, and could +not have heard what I said. Possibly I should have flung myself +after him and offered him further insult, had it not been that +just at that moment the waiter who had witnessed my encounter +with Kolpikoff handed me my greatcoat, and I at once quietened +down--merely making such a pretence of having had a difference +with Dimitri as was necessary to make my sudden appeasement +appear nothing extraordinary. Next day, when I met Dubkoff at +Woloda's, the quarrel was not raked up, yet he and I still +addressed each other as "you," and found it harder than ever to +look one another in the face. + +The remembrance of my scene with Kolpikoff--who, by the way, +never sent me "de ses nouvelles," either the following day or any +day afterwards--remained for years a keen and unpleasant memory. +Even so much as five years after it had happened I would begin +fidgeting and muttering to myself whenever I remembered the +unavenged insult, and was fain to comfort myself with the +satisfaction of recollecting the sort of young fellow I had shown +myself to be in my subsequent affair with Dubkoff. In fact, it +was only later still that I began to regard the matter in another +light, and both to recall with comic appreciation my passage of +arms with Kolpikoff, and to regret the undeserved affront which I +had offered my good friend Dubkoff. + +When, at a later hour on the evening of the dinner, I told +Dimitri of my affair with Kolpikoff, whose exterior I described +in detail, he was astounded. + +"That is the very man!" he cried. "Don't you know that this +precious Kolpikoff is a known scamp and sharper, as well as, +above all things, a coward, and that he was expelled from his +regiment by his brother officers because, having had his face +slapped, he would not fight? But how came you to let him get +away?" he added, with a kindly smile and glance. "Surely he could +not have said more to you than he did when he called you a cad?" + +"No," I admitted with a blush. + +"Well, it was not right, but there is no great harm done," said +Dimitri consolingly. + +Long afterwards, when thinking the matter over at leisure, I +suddenly came to the conclusion that it was quite possible that +Kolpikoff took the opportunity of vicariously wiping off upon me +the slap in the face which he had once received, just as I myself +took the opportunity of vicariously wiping off upon the innocent +Dubkoff the epithet "cad" which Kolpikoff had just applied to me. + +XVII + +I GET READY TO PAY SOME CALLS + +On awaking next morning my first thoughts were of the affair with +Kolpikoff. Once again I muttered to myself and stamped about the +room, but there was no help for it. To-day was the last day that +I was to spend in Moscow, and it was to be spent, by Papa's +orders, in my paying a round of calls which he had written out +for me on a piece of paper--his first solicitude on our account +being not so much for our morals or our education as for our due +observance of the convenances. On the piece of paper was written +in his swift, broken hand-writing: "(1) Prince Ivan Ivanovitch +WITHOUT FAIL; (2) the Iwins WITHOUT FAIL; (3) Prince Michael; (4) +the Princess Nechludoff and Madame Valakhina if you wish." Of +course I was also to call upon my guardian, upon the rector, and +upon the professors. + +These last-mentioned calls, however, Dimitri advised me not to +pay: saying that it was not only unnecessary to do so, but not +the thing. However, there were the other visits to be got +through. It was the first two on the list--those marked as to be +paid "WITHOUT FAIL"--that most alarmed me. Prince Ivan Ivanovitch +was a commander-in-chief, as well as old, wealthy, and a +bachelor. Consequently, I foresaw that vis-a-vis conversation +between him and myself--myself a sixteen-year-old student!--was +not likely to be interesting. As for the Iwins, they too were +rich--the father being a departmental official of high rank who +had only on one occasion called at our house during my +grandmother's time. Since her death, I had remarked that the +younger Iwin had fought shy of us, and seemed to give himself +airs. The elder of the pair, I had heard, had now finished his +course in jurisprudence, and gone to hold a post in St. +Petersburg, while his brother Sergius (the former object of my +worship) was also in St. Petersburg, as a great fat cadet in the +Corps of Pages. + +When I was a young man, not only did I dislike intercourse with +people who thought themselves above me, but such intercourse was, +for me, an unbearable torture, owing partly to my constant dread +of being snubbed, and partly to my straining every faculty of my +intellect to prove to such people my independence. Yet, even if I +failed to fulfil the latter part of my father's instructions, I +felt that I must carry out the former. I paced my room and eyed +my clothes ready disposed on chairs--the tunic, the sword, and +the cap. Just as I was about to set forth, old Grap called to +congratulate me, bringing with him Ilinka. Grap pere was a +Russianised German and an intolerably effusive, sycophantic old +man who was more often than not tipsy. As a rule, he visited us +only when he wanted to ask for something, and although Papa +sometimes entertained him in his study, old Grap never came to +dinner with us. With his subserviency and begging propensities +went such a faculty of good-humour and a power of making himself +at home that every one looked upon his attachment to us as a +great honour. For my part, however, I never liked him, and felt +ashamed when he was speaking. + +I was much put out by the arrival of these visitors, and made no +effort to conceal the fact. Upon Ilinka I had been so used to +look down, and he so used to recognise my right to do so, that it +displeased me to think that he was now as much a matriculated +student as myself. In some way he appeared to me to have made a +POINT of attaining that equality. I greeted the pair coldly, and, +without offering them any refreshment (since it went against the +grain to do so, and I thought they could ask for anything, if +they wanted it, without my first inviting them to state their +requirements), gave orders for the drozhki to be got ready. +Ilinka was a good-natured, extremely moral, and far from stupid +young fellow; yet, for all that, what people call a person of +moods. That is to say, for no apparent reason he was for ever in +some PRONOUNCED frame of mind--now lachrymose, now frivolous, now +touchy on the very smallest point. At the present moment he +appeared to be in the last-named mood. He kept looking from his +father to myself without speaking, except when directly +addressed, at which times he smiled the self-deprecatory, forced +smile under which he was accustomed to conceal his feelings, and +more especially that feeling of shame for his father which he +must have experienced in our house. + +"So, Nicolas Petrovitch," the old man said to me, following me +everywhere about the room as I went through the operation of +dressing, while all the while his fat fingers kept turning over +and over a silver snuff-box with which my grandmother had once +presented me, "as soon as ever I heard from my son that you had +passed your examinations so well (though of course your abilities +are well-known to everyone), I at once came to congratulate you, +my dear boy. Why, I have carried you on my shoulders before now, +and God knows that I love you as though you were my own son. My +Ilinka too has always been fond of you, and feels quite at home +with you." + +Meanwhile the said Ilinka remained sitting silently by the +window, apparently absorbed in contemplation of my three-cornered +cap, and every now and then angrily muttering something in an +undertone. + +"Now, I also wanted to ask you, Nicolas Petrovitch." His father +went on, "whether my son did well in the examinations? He tells +me that he is going to be in the same faculty as yourself, and +that therefore you will be able to keep an eye on him, and advise +him, and so on." + +"Oh, yes, I suppose he passed well," I replied, with a glance at +Ilinka, who, conscious of my gaze, reddened violently and ceased +to move his lips about. +"And might he spend the day with you?" was the father's next +request, which he made with a deprecatory smile, as though he +stood in actual awe of me, yet always keeping so close to me, +wherever I moved, that the fumes of the drink and tobacco in +which he had been indulging were constantly perceptible to my +nostrils. I felt greatly vexed at his placing me in such a false +position towards his son, as well as at his distracting my +attention from what was, to me, a highly important operation-- +namely, the operation of dressing; while, over and above all, I +was annoyed by the smell of liquor with which he followed me +about. Accordingly, I said very coldly that I could not have the +pleasure of Ilinka's company that day, since I should be out. + +"Ah! I suppose you are going to see your sister?" put in Ilinka +with a smile, but without looking at me. "Well, I too have +business to attend to." At this I felt even more put out, as well +as pricked with compunction; so, to soften my refusal a little, I +hastened to say that the reason why I should not be at home that +day was that I had to call upon the PRINCE Ivan Ivanovitch, the +PRINCESS Kornakoff, and the Monsieur Iwin who held such an +influential post, as well as, probably, to dine with the PRINCESS +Nechludoff (for I thought that, on learning what important folk I +was in the habit of mixing with, the Graps would no longer think +it worth while to pretend to me). However, just as they were +leaving, I invited Ilinka to come and see me another day; but he +only murmured something unintelligible, and it was plain that he +meant never to set foot in the house again. + +When they had departed, I set off on my round of calls. Woloda, +whom I had asked that morning to come with me, in order that I +might not feel quite so shy as when altogether alone, had +declined on the ground that for two brothers to be seen driving +in one drozhki would appear so horribly "proper." + +XVIII + +THE VALAKHIN FAMILY + +Accordingly I set off alone. My first call on the route lay at +the Valakhin mansion. It was now three years since I had seen +Sonetchka, and my love for her had long become a thing of the +past, yet there still lingered in my heart a sort of clear, +touching recollection of our bygone childish affection. At +intervals, also, during those three years, I had found myself +recalling her memory with such force and vividness that I had +actually shed tears, and imagined myself to be in love with her +again, but those occasions had not lasted more than a few minutes +at a time, and had been long in recurring. + +I knew that Sonetchka and her mother had been abroad--that, in +fact, they had been so for the last two years. Also, I had heard +that they had been in a carriage accident, and that Sonetchka's +face had been so badly cut with the broken glass that her beauty +was marred. As I drove to their house, I kept recalling the old +Sonetchka to my mind, and wondering what she would look like when +I met her. Somehow I imagined that, after her two years' sojourn +abroad, she would look very tall, with a beautiful waist, and, +though sedate and imposing, extremely attractive. Somehow, also, +my imagination refused to picture her with her face disfigured +with scars, but, on the contrary, since I had read somewhere of a +lover who remained true to his adored one in spite of her +disfigurement with smallpox, strove to imagine that I was in love +with Sonetchka, for the purpose of priding myself on holding to +my troth in spite of her scars--Yet, as a matter of fact, I was +not really in love with her during that drive, but having once +stirred up in myself old MEMORIES of love, felt PREPARED to fall +into that condition, and the more so because, of late, my +conscience had often been pricking me for having discarded so +many of my old flames. + +The Valakhins lived in a neat little wooden mansion approached by +a courtyard. I gained admittance by ringing a bell (then a rarity +in Moscow), and was received by a mincing, smartly-attired page. +He either could not or made no attempt to inform me whether there +was any one at home, but, leaving me alone in the dark hall, ran +off down a still darker corridor. For a long time I waited in +solitude in this gloomy place, out of which, in addition to the +front door and the corridor, there only opened a door which at +the moment was closed. Rather surprised at the dismal appearance +of the house, I came to the conclusion that the reason was that +its inmates were still abroad. After five minutes, however, the +door leading into the salon was opened by the page boy, who then +conducted me into a neat, but not richly furnished, drawing-room, +where presently I was joined by Sonetchka. + +She was now seventeen years old, and very small and thin, as well +as of an unhealthy pallor of face. No scars at all were visible, +however, and the beautiful, prominent eyes and bright, cheerful +smile were the same as I had known and loved in my childhood. I +had not expected her to look at all like this, and therefore +could not at once lavish upon her the sentiment which I had been +preparing on the way. She gave me her hand in the English fashion +(which was then as much a novelty as a door-bell), and, bestowing +upon mine a frank squeeze, sat down on the sofa by my side. + +"Ah! how glad I am to see you, my dear Nicolas!" she said as she +looked me in the face with an expression of pleasure so sincere +that in the words "my dear Nicolas" I caught the purely friendly +rather than the patronising note. To my surprise she seemed to me +simpler, kinder, and more sisterly after her foreign tour than +she had been before it. True, I could now see that she had two +small scars between her nose and temples, but her wonderful eyes +and smile fitted in exactly with my recollections, and shone as +of old. + +"But how greatly you have changed!" she went on. "You are quite +grown-up now. And I-I-well, what do you think of me?" + +"I should never have known you," I replied, despite the fact that +at the moment I was thinking that I should have known her +anywhere and always. + +"Why? Am I grown so ugly?" she inquired with a movement of her +head. + +"Oh, no, decidedly not!" I hastened to reply. "But you have grown +taller and older. As for being uglier, why, you are even-- + +"Yes, yes; never mind. Do you remember our dances and games, and +St. Jerome, and Madame Dorat?" (As a matter of fact, I could not +recollect any Madame Dorat, but saw that Sonetchka was being led +away by the joy of her childish recollections, and mixing them up +a little). "Ah! what a lovely time it was!" she went on--and once +more there shone before me the same eyes and smile as I had +always carried in my memory. While she had been speaking, I had +been thinking over my position at the present moment, and had +come to the conclusion that I was in love with her. The instant, +however, that I arrived at that result my careless, happy mood +vanished, a mist seemed to arise before me which concealed even +her eyes and smile, and, blushing hotly, I became tongue-tied and +ill-at-ease. + +"But times are different now," she went on with a sigh and a +little lifting of her eyebrows. "Everything seems worse than it +used to be, and ourselves too. Is it not so, Nicolas?" + +I could return her no answer, but sat silently looking at her. + +"Where are those Iwins and Kornakoffs now? Do you remember them?" +she continued, looking, I think, with some curiosity at my +blushing, downcast countenance. "What splendid times we used to +have!" + +Still I could not answer her. + +The next moment, I was relieved from this awkward position by the +entry of old Madame Valakhin into the room. Rising, I bowed, and +straightway recovered my faculty of speech. On the other hand, an +extraordinary change now took place in Sonetchka. All her gaiety +and bonhomie disappeared, her smile became quite a different one, +and, except for the point of her shortness of stature, she became +just the lady from abroad whom I had expected to find in her. Yet +for this change there was no apparent reason, since her mother +smiled every whit as pleasantly, and expressed in her every +movement just the same benignity, as of old. Seating herself in +her arm-chair, the old lady signed to me to come and sit beside +her; after which she said something to her daughter in English, +and Sonetchka left the room--a fact which still further helped to +relieve me. Madame then inquired after my father and brother, and +passed on to speak of her great bereavement--the loss of her +husband. Presently, however, she seemed to become sensible of the +fact that I was not helping much in the conversation, for she +gave me a look as much as to say: "If, now, my dear boy, you were +to get up, to take your leave, and to depart, it would be well." +But a curious circumstance had overtaken me. While she had been +speaking of her bereavement, I had recalled to myself, not only +the fact that I was in love, but the probability that the mother +knew of it: whereupon such a fit of bashfulness had come upon me +that I felt powerless to put any member of my body to its +legitimate use. I knew that if I were to rise and walk I should +have to think where to plant each foot, what to do with my head, +what with my hands, and so on. In a word, I foresaw that I should +be very much as I had been on the night when I partook too freely +of champagne, and therefore, since I felt uncertain of being able +to manage myself if I DID rise, I ended by feeling UNABLE to +rise. Meanwhile, I should say, Sonetchka had returned to the room +with her work, and seated herself in a far corner--a corner +whence, as I was nevertheless sensible, she could observe me. +Madame must have felt some surprise as she gazed at my crimson +face and noted my complete immobility, but I decided that it was +better to continue sitting in that absurd position than to risk +something unpleasant by getting up and walking. Thus I sat on and +on, in the hope that some unforeseen chance would deliver me from +my predicament. That unforeseen chance at length presented itself +in the person of an unforeseen young man, who entered the room +with an air of being one of the household, and bowed to me +politely as he did so: whereupon Madame rose, excused herself to +me for having to speak with her "homme d'affaires," and finally +gave me a glance which said: "Well, if you DO mean to go on +sitting there for ever, at least I can't drive you away." +Accordingly, with a great effort I also rose, but, finding it +impossible to do any leave-taking, moved away towards the door, +followed by the pitying glances of mother and daughter. All at +once I stumbled over a chair, although it was lying quite out of +my route: the reason for my stumbling being that my whole +attention was centred upon not tripping over the carpet. Driving +through the fresh air, however--where at first I muttered and +fidgeted about so much that Kuzma, my coachman, asked me what was +the matter--I soon found this feeling pass away, and began to +meditate quietly concerning my love for Sonetchka and her +relations with her mother, which had appeared to me rather +strange. When, afterwards, I told my father that mother and +daughter had not seemed on the best of terms with one another, he +said: + +"Yes, Madame leads the poor girl an awful life with her meanness. +Yet," added my father with a greater display of feeling than a +man might naturally conceive for a mere relative, "she used to be +such an original, dear, charming woman! I cannot think what has +made her change so much. By the way, you didn't notice a +secretary fellow about, did you? Fancy a Russian lady having an +affaire with a secretary!" + +"Yes, I saw him," I replied. + +"And was he at least good-looking?" + +"No, not at all." + +"It is extraordinary!" concluded Papa, with a cough and an +irritable hoist of his shoulder. + +"Well, I am in love!" was my secret thought to myself as I drove +along in my drozhki. + +XIX + +THE KORNAKOFFS + +MY second call on the route lay at the Kornakoffs', who lived on +the first floor of a large mansion facing the Arbat. The +staircase of the building looked extremely neat and orderly, yet +in no way luxurious--being lined only with drugget pinned down +with highly-polished brass rods. Nowhere were there any flowers +or mirrors to be seen. The salon, too, with its polished floor, +which I traversed on my way to the drawing-room, was decorated in +the same cold, severe, unostentatious style. Everything in it +looked bright and solid, but not new, and pictures, flower- +stands, and articles of bric-a-brac were wholly absent. In the +drawing-room I found some of the young princesses seated, but +seated with the sort of correct, "company" air about them which +gave one the impression that they sat like that only when guests +were expected. + +"Mamma will be here presently," the eldest of them said to me as +she seated herself by my side. For the next quarter of an hour, +this young lady entertained me with such an easy flow of small- +talk that the conversation never flagged a moment. Yet somehow +she made so patent the fact that she was just entertaining me +that I felt not altogether pleased. Amongst other things, she +told me that their brother Stephen (whom they called Etienne, and +who had been two years at the College of Cadets) had now received +his commission. Whenever she spoke of him, and more particularly +when she told me that he had flouted his mother's wishes by +entering the Hussars, she assumed a nervous air, and immediately +her sisters, sitting there in silence, also assumed a nervous +air. When, again, she spoke of my grandmother's death, she +assumed a MOURNFUL air, and immediately the others all did the +same. Finally, when she recalled how I had once struck St. Jerome +and been expelled from the room, she laughed and showed her bad +teeth, and immediately all the other princesses laughed and +showed their bad teeth too. + +Next, the Princess-Mother herself entered--a little dried-up +woman, with a wandering glance and a habit of always looking at +somebody else when she was addressing one. Taking my hand, she +raised her own to my lips for me to kiss it--which otherwise, not +supposing it to be necessary, I should not have done. + +"How pleased I am to see you!" she said with her usual clearness +of articulation as she gazed at her daughters. "And how like your +mother you look! Does he not, Lise?" + +Lise assented, though I knew for a fact that I did not resemble +my mother in the least. + +"And what a grown-up you have become! My Etienne, you will +remember, is your second cousin. No, not second cousin--what is +it, Lise? My mother was Barbara Dimitrievna, daughter of Dimitri +Nicolaevitch, and your grandmother was Natalia Nicolaevna." + +"Then he is our THIRD cousin, Mamma," said the eldest girl. + +"Oh, how you always confuse me!" was her mother's angry reply. +"Not third cousin, but COUSIN GERMAN--that is your relationship +to Etienne. He is an officer now. Did you know it? It is not well +that he should have his own way too much. You young men need +keeping in hand, or--! Well, you are not vexed because your old +aunt tells you the plain truth? I always kept Etienne strictly in +hand, for I found it necessary to do so." + +"Yes, that is how our relationship stands," she went on. "Prince +Ivan Ivanovitch is my uncle, and your late mother's uncle also. +Consequently I must have been your mother's first cousin--no, +second cousin. Yes, that is it. Tell me, have you been to call on +Prince Ivan yet?" + +I said no, but that I was just going to. + +"Ah, is it possible?" she cried. "Why, you ought to have paid him +the first call of all! Surely you know that he stands to you in +the position of a father? He has no children of his own, and his +only heirs are yourself and my children. You ought to pay him all +possible deference, both because of his age, and because of his +position in the world, and because of everything else. I know +that you young fellows of the present day think nothing of +relationships and are not fond of old men, yet do you listen to +me, your old aunt, for I am fond of you, and was fond of your +mother, and had a great--a very great-liking and respect for your +grandmother. You must not fail to call upon him on any account." + +I said that I would certainly go, and since my present call +seemed to me to have lasted long enough, I rose, and was about to +depart, but she restrained me. + +"No, wait a minute," she cried. "Where is your father, Lise? Go +and tell him to come here. He will be so glad to see you," she +added, turning to me. + +Two minutes later Prince Michael entered. He was a short, thick- +set gentleman, very slovenly dressed and ill-shaven, yet wearing +such an air of indifference that he looked almost a fool. He was +not in the least glad to see me--at all events he did not intimate +that he was; but the Princess (who appeared to stand in +considerable awe of him) hastened to say: + +"Is not Woldemar here" (she seemed to have forgotten my name) +"exactly like his mother?" and she gave her husband a glance +which forced him to guess what she wanted. Accordingly he +approached me with his usual passionless, half-discontented +expression, and held out to me an unshaven cheek to kiss. + +"Why, you are not dressed yet, though you have to go out soon!" +was the Princess's next remark to him in the angry tone which she +habitually employed in conversation with her domestics. "It will +only mean your offending some one again, and trying to set people +against you." + +"In a moment, in a moment, mother," said Prince Michael, and +departed. I also made my bows and departed. + +This was the first time I had heard of our being related to +Prince Ivan Ivanovitch, and the news struck me unpleasantly. + +XX + +THE IWINS + +As for the prospect of my call upon the Prince, it seemed even +more unpleasant. However, the order of my route took me first to +the Iwins, who lived in a large and splendid mansion in Tverskaia +Street. It was not without some nervousness that I entered the +great portico where a Swiss major-domo stood armed with his staff +of office. + +To my inquiry as to whether any one was at home he replied: "Whom +do you wish to see, sir? The General's son is within." + +"And the General himself?" I asked with forced assurance. + +"I must report to him your business first. What may it be, sir?" +said the major-domo as he rang a bell. Immediately the gaitered +legs of a footman showed themselves on the staircase above; +whereupon I was seized with such a fit of nervousness that I +hastily bid the lacquey say nothing about my presence to the +General, since I would first see his son. By the time I had +reached the top of the long staircase, I seemed to have grown +extremely small (metaphorically, I mean, not actually), and had +very much the same feeling within me as had possessed my soul +when my drozhki drew up to the great portico, namely, a feeling +as though drozhki, horse, and coachman had all of them grown +extremely small too. I found the General's son lying asleep on a +sofa, with an open book before him. His tutor, Monsieur Frost, +under whose care he still pursued his studies at home, had +entered behind me with a sort of boyish tread, and now awoke his +pupil. Iwin evinced no particular pleasure at seeing me, while I +also seemed to notice that, while talking to me, he kept looking +at my eyebrows. Although he was perfectly polite, I conceived +that he was "entertaining" me much as the Princess Valakhin had +done, and that he not only felt no particular liking for me, but +even that he considered my acquaintance in no way necessary to +one who possessed his own circle of friends. All this arose out +of the idea that he was regarding my eyebrows. In short, his +bearing towards me appeared to be (as I recognised with an +awkward sensation) very much the same as my own towards Ilinka +Grap. I began to feel irritated, and to interpret every fleeting +glance which he cast at Monsieur Frost as a mute inquiry: "Why +has this fellow come to see me?" + +After some conversation he remarked that his father and mother +were at home. Would I not like to visit them too? + +"First I will go and dress myself," he added as he departed to +another room, notwithstanding that he had seemed to be perfectly +well dressed (in a new frockcoat and white waistcoat) in the +present one. A few minutes later he reappeared in his University +uniform, buttoned up to the chin, and we went downstairs +together. The reception rooms through which we passed were lofty +and of great size, and seemed to be richly furnished with marble +and gilt ornaments, chintz-covered settees, and a number of +mirrors. Presently Madame Iwin met us, and we went into a little +room behind the drawing-room, where, welcoming me in very +friendly fashion, she seated herself by my side, and began to +inquire after my relations. + +Closer acquaintance with Madame (whom I had seen only twice +before, and that but for a moment on each occasion) impressed me +favourably. She was tall, thin, and very pale, and looked as +though she suffered from chronic depression and fatigue. Yet, +though her smile was a sad one, it was very kind, and her large, +mournful eyes, with a slight cast in their vision, added to the +pathos and attractiveness of her expression. Her attitude, while +not precisely that of a hunchback, made her whole form droop, +while her every movement expressed languor. Likewise, though her +speech was deliberate, the timbre of her voice, and the manner in +which she lisped her r's and l's, were very pleasing to the ear. +Finally, she did not "ENTERTAIN" me. Unfortunately, the answers +which I returned to her questions concerning my relations seemed +to afford her a painful interest, and to remind her of happier +days: with the result that when, presently, her son left the +room, she gazed at me in silence for a moment, and then burst +into tears. As I sat there in mute bewilderment, I could not +conceive what I had said to bring this about. At first I felt +sorry for her as she sat there weeping with downcast eyes. Next +I began to think to myself: "Ought I not to try and comfort her, +and how ought that to be done?" Finally, I began to feel vexed +with her for placing me in such an awkward position. "Surely my +appearance is not so moving as all that?" I reflected. "Or is she +merely acting like this to see what I shall do under the +circumstances?" + +"Yet it would not do for me to go," I continued to myself, for +that would look too much as though I were fleeing to escape her +tears." Accordingly I began fidgeting about on my seat, in order +to remind her of my presence. + +"Oh, how foolish of me!" at length she said, as she gazed at me +for a moment and tried to smile. "There are days when one weeps +for no reason whatever." She felt about for her handkerchief, and +then burst out weeping more violently than before. + +"Oh dear! How silly of me to be for ever crying like this! Yet I +was so fond of your mother! We were such friends! We-we--" + +At this point she found her handkerchief, and, burying her face +in it, went on crying. Once more I found myself in the same +protracted dilemma. Though vexed, I felt sorry for her, since her +tears appeared to be genuine--even though I also had an idea that +it was not so much for my mother that she was weeping as for the +fact that she was unhappy, and had known happier days. How it +would all have ended I do not know, had not her son reappeared +and said that his father desired to see her. Thereupon she rose, +and was just about to leave the room, when the General himself +entered. He was a small, grizzled, thick-set man, with bushy +black eyebrows, a grey, close-cropped head, and a very stern, +haughty expression of countenance. + +I rose and bowed to him, but the General (who was wearing three +stars on his green frockcoat) not only made no response to my +salutation, but scarcely even looked at me; so that all at once I +felt as though I were not a human being at all, but only some +negligible object such as a settee or window; or, if I were a +human being, as though I were quite indistinguishable from such a +negligible object. + +"Then you have not yet written to the Countess, my dear?" he said +to his wife in French, and with an imperturbable, yet determined, +expression on his countenance. + +"Good-bye, Monsieur Irtenieff," Madame said to me, in her turn, +as she made a proud gesture with her head and looked at my +eyebrows just as her son had done. I bowed to her, and again to +her husband, but my second salutation made no more impression +upon him than if a window had just been opened or closed. +Nevertheless the younger Iwin accompanied me to the door, and on +the way told me that he was to go to St. Petersburg University, +since his father had been appointed to a post in that city (and +young Iwin named a very high office in the service). + +"Well, his Papa may do whatsoever he likes," I muttered to myself +as I climbed into the drozhki, "but at all events I will never +set foot in that house again. His wife weeps and looks at me as +though I were the embodiment of woe, while that old pig of a +General does not even give me a bow. However, I will get even +with him some day." How I meant to do that I do not know, but my +words nevertheless came true. + +Afterwards, I frequently found it necessary to remember the advice +of my father when he said that I must cultivate the +acquaintanceship of the Iwins, and not expect a man in the +position of General Iwin to pay any attention to a boy like +myself. But I had figured in that position long enough. + +XXI + +PRINCE IVAN IVANOVITCH + +"Now for the last call--the visit to Nikitskaia Street," I said +to Kuzma, and we started for Prince Ivan Ivanovitch's mansion. + +Towards the end, a round of calls usually brings one a certain +amount of self-assurance: consequently I was approaching the +Prince's abode in quite a tranquil frame of mind, when suddenly I +remembered the Princess Kornakoff's words that I was his heir, +and at the same moment caught sight of two carriages waiting at +the portico. Instantly, my former nervousness returned. + +Both the old major-domo who opened the door to me, and the +footman who took my coat, and the two male and three female +visitors whom I found in the drawing-room, and, most of all, +Prince Ivan Ivanovitch himself (whom I found clad in a "company" +frockcoat and seated on a sofa) seemed to look at me as at an +HEIR, and so to eye me with ill-will. Yet the Prince was very +gracious and, after kissing me (that is to say, after pressing +his cold, dry, flabby lips to my cheek for a second), asked me +about my plans and pursuits, jested with me, inquired whether I +still wrote verses of the kind which I used to indite in honour +of my grandmother's birthdays, and invited me to dine with him +that day. Nevertheless, in proportion as he grew the kinder, the +more did I feel persuaded that his civility was only intended to +conceal from me the fact that he disliked the idea of my being +his heir. He had a custom (due to his false teeth, of which his +mouth possessed a complete set) of raising his upper lip a little +as he spoke, and producing a slight whistling sound from it; and +whenever, on the present occasion, he did so it seemed to me that +he was saying to himself: "A boy, a boy--I know it! And my heir, +too--my heir!" + +When we were children, we had been used to calling the Prince +"dear Uncle;" but now, in my capacity of heir, I could not bring +my tongue to the phrase, while to say "Your Highness," as did one +of the other visitors, seemed derogatory to my self-esteem. +Consequently, never once during that visit did I call him anything +at all. The personage, however, who most disturbed me was the old +Princess who shared with me the position of prospective +inheritor, and who lived in the Prince's house. While seated +beside her at dinner, I felt firmly persuaded that the reason why +she would not speak to me was that she disliked me for being her +co-heir, and that the Prince, for his part, paid no attention to +our side of the table for the reason that the Princess and myself +hoped to succeed him, and so were alike distasteful in his sight. + +"You cannot think how I hated it all!" I said to Dimitrieff the +same evening, in a desire to make a parade of disliking the +notion of being an heir (somehow I thought it the thing to do). +"You cannot think how I loathed the whole two hours that I spent +there!--Yet he is a fine-looking old fellow, and was very kind to +me," I added--wishing, among other things, to disabuse my friend +of any possible idea that my loathing had arisen out of the fact +that I had felt so small. "It is only the idea that people may be +classing me with the Princess who lives with him, and who licks +the dust off his boots. He is a wonderful old man, and good and +considerate to everybody, but it is awful to see how he treats +the Princess. Money is a detestable thing, and ruins all human +relations. + +"Do you know, I think it would be far the best thing for me to +have an open explanation with the Prince," I went on; "to tell +him that I respect him as a man, but think nothing of being his +heir, and that I desire him to leave me nothing, since that is +the only condition on which I can, in future, visit his house." + +Instead of bursting out laughing when I said this, Dimitri +pondered awhile in silence, and then answered: + +"You are wrong. Either you ought to refrain from supposing that +people may be classing you with this Princess of whom you speak, +or, if you DO suppose such a thing, you ought to suppose further +that people are thinking what you yourself know quite well-- +namely, that such thoughts are so utterly foreign to your nature +that you despise them and would never make them a basis for +action. Suppose, however, that people DO suppose you to suppose +such a thing--Well, to sum up," he added, feeling that he was +getting a little mixed in his pronouncements, "you had much +better not suppose anything of the kind." + +My friend was perfectly right, though it was not until long, long +afterwards that experience of life taught me the evil that comes +of thinking--still worse, of saying--much that seems very fine; +taught me that there are certain thoughts which should always be +kept to oneself, since brave words seldom go with brave deeds. I +learnt then that the mere fact of giving utterance to a good +intention often makes it difficult, nay, impossible, to carry +that good intention into effect. Yet how is one to refrain from +giving utterance to the brave, self-sufficient impulses of youth? +Only long afterwards does one remember and regret them, even as +one incontinently plucks a flower before its blooming, and +subsequently finds it lying crushed and withered on the ground. + +The very next morning I, who had just been telling my friend +Dimitri that money corrupts all human relations, and had (as we +have seen) squandered the whole of my cash on pictures and +Turkish pipes, accepted a loan of twenty roubles which he +suggested should pay for my travelling expenses into the country, +and remained a long while thereafter in his debt! + +XXII + +INTIMATE CONVERSATION WITH MY FRIEND + +THIS conversation of ours took place in a phaeton on the way to +Kuntsevo. Dimitri had invited me in the morning to go with him to +his mother's, and had called for me after luncheon; the idea +being that I should spend the evening, and perhaps also pass the +night, at the country-house where his family lived. Only when we +had left the city and exchanged its grimy streets and the +unbearably deafening clatter of its pavements for the open vista +of fields and the subdued grinding of carriage-wheels on a dusty +high road (while the sweet spring air and prospect enveloped us +on every side) did I awake from the new impressions and +sensations of freedom into which the past two days had plunged +me. Dimitri was in his kind and sociable mood. That is to say, he +was neither frowning nor blinking nervously nor straightening his +neck in his collar. For my own part, I was congratulating myself +on those noble sentiments which I have expressed above, in the +belief that they had led him to overlook my shameful encounter +with Kolpikoff, and to refrain from despising me for it. Thus we +talked together on many an intimate subject which even a friend +seldom mentions to a friend. He told me about his family whose +acquaintance I had not yet made--about his mother, his aunt, and +his sister, as also about her whom Woloda and Dubkoff believed to +be his "flame," and always spoke of as "the lady with the +chestnut locks." Of his mother he spoke with a certain cold and +formal commendation, as though to forestall any further mention +of her; his aunt he extolled enthusiastically, though with a +touch of condescension in his tone; his sister he scarcely +mentioned at all, as though averse to doing so in my presence; +but on the subject of "the lady with the chestnut locks" (whose +real name was Lubov Sergievna, and who was a grown-up young lady +living on a family footing with the Nechludoffs) he discoursed +with animation. + +"Yes, she is a wonderful woman," he said with a conscious +reddening of the face, yet looking me in the eyes with dogged +temerity. "True, she is no longer young, and even rather elderly, +as well as by no means good-looking; but as for loving a mere +featherhead, a mere beauty--well, I never could understand that, +for it is such a silly thing to do." (Dimitri said this as though +he had just discovered a most novel and extraordinary truth.) "I +am certain, too, that such a soul, such a heart and principles, +as are hers are not to be found elsewhere in the world of the +present day." (I do not know whence he had derived the habit of +saying that few good things were discoverable in the world of the +present day, but at all events he loved to repeat the expression, +and it somehow suited him.) + +"Only, I am afraid," he went on quietly, after thus annihilating +all such men as were foolish enough to admire mere beauty, "I am +afraid that you will not understand or realise her quickly. She +is modest, even secretive, and by no means fond of exhibiting her +beautiful and surprising qualities. Now, my mother--who, as you +will see, is a noble, sensible woman--has known Lubov Sergievna, +for many years; yet even to this day she does not properly +understand her. Shall I tell you why I was out of temper last +evening when you were questioning me? Well, you must know that +the day before yesterday Lubov asked me to accompany her to Ivan +Yakovlevitch's (you have heard of him, I suppose? the fellow who +seems to be mad, but who, in reality, is a very remarkable man). +Well, Lubov is extremely religious, and understands Ivan +Yakovlevitch to the full. She often goes to see him, and +converses with him, and gives him money for the poor--money which +she has earned herself. She is a marvellous woman, as you will +see. Well, I went with her to Ivan's, and felt very grateful to +her for having afforded me the opportunity of exchanging a word +with so remarkable a man; but my mother could not understand our +action at all, and discerned in it only superstition. +Consequently, last night she and I quarrelled for the first time +in our lives. A very bitter one it was, too," he concluded, with +a convulsive shrug of his shoulders, as though the mention of it +recalled the feelings which he had then experienced. + +"And what are your intentions about it all?" I inquired, to +divert him from such a disagreeable recollection. "That is to +say, how do you imagine it is going to turn out? Do you ever +speak to her about the future, or about how your love or +friendship are going to end?" + +"Do you mean, do I intend to marry her eventually?" he inquired, +in his turn, with a renewed blush, but turning himself round and +looking me boldly in the face. + +"Yes, certainly," I replied as I settled myself down. "We are +both of us grown-up, as well as friends, so we may as well +discuss our future life as we drive along. No one could very well +overlook or overhear us now." + +"Why should I NOT marry her?" he went on in response to my +reassuring reply. "It is my aim--as it should be the aim of every +honourable man--to be as good and as happy as possible; and with +her, if she should still be willing when I have become more +independent, I should be happier and better than with the +greatest beauty in the world." + +Absorbed in such conversation, we hardly noticed that we were +approaching Kuntsevo, or that the sky was becoming overcast and +beginning to threaten rain. On the right, the sun was slowly +sinking behind the ancient trees of the Kuntsevo park--one half +of its brilliant disc obscured with grey, subluminous cloud, and +the other half sending forth spokes of flaming light which threw +the old trees into striking relief as they stood there with their +dense crowns of green showing against a blue patch of sky. The +light and shimmer of that patch contrasted sharply with the heavy +pink cloud which lay massed above a young birch-tree visible on +the horizon before us, while, a little further to the right, the +parti-coloured roofs of the Kuntsevo mansion could be seen +projecting above a belt of trees and undergrowth--one side of them +reflecting the glittering rays of the sun, and the other side +harmonising with the more louring portion of the heavens. Below +us, and to the left, showed the still blue of a pond where it lay +surrounded with pale-green laburnums--its dull, concave-looking +depths repeating the trees in more sombre shades of colour over +the surface of a hillock. Beyond the water spread the black +expanse of a ploughed field, with the straight line of a dark- +green ridge by which it was bisected running far into the +distance, and there joining the leaden, threatening horizon. + +On either side of the soft road along which the phaeton was +pursuing the even tenour of its way, bright-green, tangled, juicy +belts of rye were sprouting here and there into stalk. Not a +motion was perceptible in the air, only a sweet freshness, and +everything looked extraordinarily clear and bright. Near the road +I could see a little brown path winding its way among the dark- +green, quarter-grown stems of rye, and somehow that path reminded +me vividly of our village, and somehow (through some connection +of thought) the idea of that village reminded me vividly of +Sonetchka, and so of the fact that I was in love with her. + +Notwithstanding my fondness for Dimitri and the pleasure which +his frankness had afforded me, I now felt as though I desired to +hear no more about his feelings and intentions with regard to +Lubov Sergievna, but to talk unstintedly about my own love for +Sonetchka, who seemed to me an object of affection of a far +higher order. Yet for some reason or another I could not make up +my mind to tell him straight out how splendid it would seem when +I had married Sonetchka and we were living in the country--of how +we should have little children who would crawl about the floor +and call me Papa, and of how delighted I should be when he, +Dimitri, brought his wife, Lubov Sergievna, to see us, wearing an +expensive gown. Accordingly, instead of saying all that, I +pointed to the setting sun, and merely remarked: "Look, Dimitri! +How splendid!" + +To this, however, Dimitri made no reply, since he was evidently +dissatisfied at my answering his confession (which it had cost +him much to make) by directing his attention to natural objects +(to which he was, in general, indifferent). Upon him Nature had +an effect altogether different to what she had upon myself, for +she affected him rather by her industry than by her beauty--he +loved her rather with his intellect than with his senses. + +"I am absolutely happy," I went on, without noticing that he was +altogether taken up with his own thoughts and oblivious of +anything that I might be saying. "You will remember how told you +about a girl with whom I used to be in love when was a little +boy? Well, I saw her again only this morning, and am now +infatuated with her." Then I told him--despite his continued +expression of indifference--about my love, and about all my plans +for my future connubial happiness. Strangely enough, no sooner +had I related in detail the whole strength of my feelings than I +instantly became conscious of its diminution. + +The rain overtook us just as we were turning into the avenue of +birch-trees which led to the house, but it did not really wet us. +I only knew that it was raining by the fact that I felt a drop +fall, first on my nose, and then on my hand, and heard something +begin to patter upon the young, viscous leaves of the birch-trees +as, drooping their curly branches overhead, they seemed to imbibe +the pure, shining drops with an avidity which filled the whole +avenue with scent. We descended from the carriage, so as to reach +the house the quicker through the garden, but found ourselves +confronted at the entrance-door by four ladies, two of whom were +knitting, one reading a book, and the fourth walking to and fro +with a little dog. Thereupon, Dimitri began to present me to his +mother, sister, and aunt, as well as to Lubov Sergievna. For a +moment they remained where they were, but almost instantly the +rain became heavier. + +"Let us go into the verandah; you can present him to us there," +said the lady whom I took to be Dimitri's mother, and we all of +us ascended the entrance-steps. + +XXIII + +THE NECHLUDOFFS + +From the first, the member of this company who struck me the most +was Lubov Sergievna, who, holding a lapdog in her arms and +wearing stout laced boots, was the last of the four ladies to +ascend the staircase, and twice stopped to gaze at me intently +and then kiss her little dog. She was anything but good-looking, +since she was red-haired, thin, short, and slightly crooked. What +made her plain face all the plainer was the queer way in which +her hair was parted to one side (it looked like the wigs which +bald women contrive for themselves). However much I should have +liked to applaud my friend, I could not find a single comely +feature in her. Even her brown eyes, though expressive of good- +humour, were small and dull--were, in fact, anything but pretty; +while her hands (those most characteristic of features), were +though neither large nor ill-shaped, coarse and red. + +As soon as we reached the verandah, each of the ladies, except +Dimitri's sister Varenika--who also had been regarding me +attentively out of her large, dark-grey eyes--said a few words +to me before resuming her occupation, while Varenika herself began +to read aloud from a book which she held on her lap and steadied +with her finger. + +The Princess Maria Ivanovna was a tall, well-built woman of +forty. To judge by the curls of half-grey hair which descended +below her cap one might have taken her for more, but as soon as +ever one observed the fresh, extraordinarily tender, and almost +wrinkleless face, as well as, most of all, the lively, cheerful +sparkle of the large eyes, one involuntarily took her for less. +Her eyes were black and very frank, her lips thin and slightly +severe, her nose regular and slightly inclined to the left, and +her hands ringless, large, and almost like those of a man, but +with finely tapering fingers. She wore a dark-blue dress fastened +to the throat and sitting closely to her firm, still youthful +waist--a waist which she evidently pinched. Lastly, she held +herself very upright, and was knitting a garment of some kind. As +soon as I stepped on to the verandah she took me by the hand, +drew me to her as though wishing to scrutinise me more closely, +and said, as she gazed at me with the same cold, candid glance as +her son's, that she had long known me by report from Dimitri, and +that therefore, in order to make my acquaintance thoroughly, she +had invited me to stay these twenty-four hours in her house. + +"Do just as you please here," she said, "and stand on no ceremony +whatever with us, even as we shall stand on none with you. Pray +walk, read, listen, or sleep as the mood may take you." + +Sophia Ivanovna was an old maid and the Princess's younger +sister, though she looked the elder of the two. She had that +exceedingly overstuffed appearance which old maids always present +who are short of stature but wear corsets. It seemed as though +her healthiness had shifted upwards to the point of choking her, +her short, fat hands would not meet below her projecting bust, +and the line of her waist was scarcely visible at all. + +Notwithstanding that the Princess Maria Ivanovna had black hair +and eyes, while Sophia Ivanovna had white hair and large, +vivacious, tranquilly blue eyes (a rare combination), there was a +great likeness between the two sisters, for they had the same +expression, nose, and lips. The only difference was that Sophia's +nose and lips were a trifle coarser than Maria's, and that, when +she smiled, those features inclined towards the right, +whereas Maria's inclined towards the left. Sophia, to judge by +her dress and coiffure, was still youthful at heart, and would +never have displayed grey curls, even if she had possessed them. +Yet at first her glance and bearing towards me seemed very proud, +and made me nervous, whereas I at once felt at home with the +Princess. Perhaps it was only Sophia's stoutness and a certain +resemblance to portraits of Catherine the Great that gave her, in +my eyes, a haughty aspect, but at all events I felt quite +intimidated when she looked at me intently and said, "Friends of +our friends are our friends also." I became reassured and changed +my opinion about her only when, after saying those words, she +opened her mouth and sighed deeply. It may be that she owed her +habit of sighing after every few words--with a great distention +of the mouth and a slight drooping of her large blue eyes--to her +stoutness, yet it was none the less one which expressed so much +good-humour that I at once lost all fear of her, and found her +actually attractive. Her eyes were charming, her voice pleasant +and musical, and even the flowing lines of her fullness seemed to +my youthful vision not wholly lacking in beauty. + +I had imagined that Lubov Sergievna, as my friend's friend, would +at once say something friendly and familiar to me; yet, after +gazing at me fixedly for a while, as though in doubt whether the +remark she was about to make to me would not be too friendly, she +at length asked me what faculty I was in. After that she stared +at me as before, in evident hesitation as to whether or not to +say something civil and familiar, until, remarking her +perplexity, I besought her with a look to speak freely. Yet all +she then said was, "They tell me the Universities pay very little +attention to science now," and turned away to call her little +dog. + +All that evening she spoke only in disjointed fragments of this +kind--fragments which had no connection either with the point or +with one another; yet I had such faith in Dimitri, and he so +often kept looking from her to me with an expression which mutely +asked me, "Now, what do you think of that?" that, though I +entirely failed to persuade myself that in Lubov Sergievna there +was anything to speak of, I could not bear to express the +thought, even to myself. + +As for the last member of the family, Varenika, she was a well- +developed girl of sixteen. The only good features in her were a +pair of dark-grey eyes,--which, in their expression of gaiety +mingled with quiet attention, greatly resembled those of her +aunt--a long coil of flaxen hair, and extremely delicate, +beautiful hands. + +"I expect, Monsieur Nicolas, you find it wearisome to hear a +story begun from the middle?" said Sophia Ivanovna with her good- +natured sigh as she turned over some pieces of clothing which she +was sewing. The reading aloud had ceased for the moment because +Dimitri had left the room on some errand or another. + +"Or perhaps you have read Rob Roy before?" she added. + +At that period I thought it incumbent upon me, in virtue of my +student's uniform, to reply in a very "clever and original" +manner to every question put to me by people whom I did not know +very well, and regarded such short, clear answers as "Yes," "No," +"I like it," or "I do not care for it," as things to be ashamed +of. Accordingly, looking down at my new and fashionably-cut +trousers and the glittering buttons of my tunic, I replied that I +had never read Rob Roy, but that it interested me greatly to hear +it, since I preferred to read books from the middle rather than +from the beginning. + +"It is twice as interesting," I added with a self-satisfied +smirk; "for then one can guess what has gone before as well as +what is to come after." + +The Princess smiled what I thought was a forced smile, but one +which I discovered later to be her only one. + +"Well, perhaps that is true," she said. "But tell me, Nicolas +(you will not be offended if I drop the Monsieur)--tell me, are +you going to be in town long? When do you go away?" + +"I do not know quite. Perhaps to-morrow, or perhaps not for some +while yet," I replied for some reason or another, though I knew +perfectly well that in reality we were to go to-morrow. + +"I wish you could stop longer, both for your own sake and for +Dimitri's," she said in a meditative manner. "At your age +friendship is a weak thing." + +I felt that every one was looking at me, and waiting to see what +I should say--though certainly Varenika made a pretence of +looking at her aunt's work. I felt, in fact, as though I were +being put through an examination, and that it behoved me to +figure in it as well as possible. + +"Yes, to ME Dimitri's friendship is most useful," I replied, "but +to HIM mine cannot be of any use at all, since he is a thousand +times better than I." (Dimitri could not hear what I said, or I +should have feared his detecting the insincerity of my words.) + +Again the Princess smiled her unnatural, yet characteristically +natural, smile. + +"Just listen to him!" she said. "But it is YOU who are the little +monster of perfection." + +"'Monster of perfection,'" I thought to myself. "That is +splendid. I must make a note of it." + +"Yet, to dismiss yourself, he has been extraordinarily clever in +that quarter," she went on in a lower tone (which pleased me +somehow) as she indicated Lubov Sergievna with her eyes, "since +he has discovered in our poor little Auntie" (such was the pet +name which they gave Lubov) "all sorts of perfections which I, +who have known her and her little dog for twenty years, had never +yet suspected. "Varenika, go and tell them to bring me a glass of +water," she added, letting her eyes wander again. Probably she +had bethought her that it was too soon, or not entirely +necessary, to let me into all the family secrets. "Yet no--let +HIM go, for he has nothing to do, while you are reading. Pray go +to the door, my friend," she said to me, "and walk about fifteen +steps down the passage. Then halt and call out pretty loudly, +"Peter, bring Maria Ivanovna a glass of iced water"--and she +smiled her curious smile once more. + +"I expect she wants to say something about me in my absence," I +thought to myself as I left the room. "I expect she wants to +remark that she can see very clearly that I am a very, very +clever young man." + +Hardly had I taken a dozen steps when I was overtaken by Sophia +Ivanovna, who, though fat and short of breath, trod with +surprising lightness and agility. + +"Merci, mon cher," she said. "I will go and tell them myself." + +XXIV + +LOVE + +SOPHIA IVANOVNA, as I afterwards came to know her, was one of +those rare, young-old women who are born for family life, but to +whom that happiness has been denied by fate. Consequently all +that store of their love which should have been +poured out upon a husband and children becomes pent up in their +hearts, until they suddenly decide to let it overflow upon a few +chosen individuals. Yet so inexhaustible is that store of old +maids' love that, despite the number of individuals so selected, +there still remains an abundant surplus of affection which they +lavish upon all by whom they are surrounded--upon all, good or +bad, whom they may chance to meet in their daily life. + +Of love there are three kinds--love of beauty, the love which +denies itself, and practical love. + +Of the desire of a young man for a young woman, as well as of the +reverse instance, I am not now speaking, for of such tendresses I +am wary, seeing that I have been too unhappy in my life to have +been able ever to see in such affection a single spark of truth, +but rather a lying pretence in which sensuality, connubial +relations, money, and the wish to bind hands or to unloose them +have rendered feeling such a complex affair as to defy analysis. +Rather am I speaking of that love for a human being which, +according to the spiritual strength of its possessor, +concentrates itself either upon a single individual, upon a few, +or upon many--of love for a mother, a father, a brother, little +children, a friend, a compatriot--of love, in short, for one's +neighbour. + +Love of beauty consists in a love of the sense of beauty and of +its expression. People who thus love conceive the object of their +affection to be desirable only in so far as it arouses in them +that pleasurable sensation of which the consciousness and the +expression soothes the senses. They change the object of their +love frequently, since their principal aim consists in ensuring +that the voluptuous feeling of their adoration shall be +constantly titillated. To preserve in themselves this sensuous +condition, they talk unceasingly, and in the most elegant terms, +on the subject of the love which they feel, not only for its +immediate object, but also for objects upon which it does not +touch at all. This country of ours contains many such +individuals--individuals of that well-known class who, +cultivating "the beautiful," not only discourse of their cult to +all and sundry, but speak of it pre-eminently in FRENCH. It may +seem a strange and ridiculous thing to say, but I am convinced +that among us we have had in the past, and still have, a large +section of society--notably women--whose love for their friends, +husbands, or children would expire to-morrow if they were +debarred from dilating upon it in the tongue of France! + +Love of the second kind--renunciatory love--consists in a +yearning to undergo self-sacrifice for the object beloved, +regardless of any consideration whether such self-sacrifice will +benefit or injure the object in question. "There is no evil which +I would not endure to show both the world and him or her whom I +adore my devotion." There we have the formula of this kind of +love. People who thus love never look for reciprocity of +affection, since it is a finer thing to sacrifice yourself for +one who does not comprehend you. Also, they are always painfully +eager to exaggerate the merits of their sacrifice; usually +constant in their love, for the reason that they would find it +hard to forego the kudos of the deprivations which they endure +for the object beloved; always ready to die, to prove to him or +to her the entirety of their devotion; but sparing of such small +daily proofs of their love as call for no special effort of self- +immolation. They do not much care whether you eat well, sleep +well, keep your spirits up, or enjoy good health, nor do they +ever do anything to obtain for you those blessings if they have +it in their power; but, should you be confronting a bullet, or +have fallen into the water, or stand in danger of being burnt, or +have had your heart broken in a love affair--well, for all these +things they are prepared if the occasion should arise. Moreover, +people addicted to love of such a self-sacrificing order are +invariably proud of their love, exacting, jealous, distrustful, +and--strange to tell--anxious that the object of their adoration +should incur perils (so that they may save it from calamity, and +console it thereafter) and even be vicious (so that they may +purge it of its vice). + +Suppose, now, that you are living in the country with a wife who +loves you in this self-sacrificing manner. You may be healthy and +contented, and have occupations which interest you, while, on the +other hand, your wife may be too weak to superintend the +household work (which, in consequence, will be left to the +servants), or to look after the children (who, in consequence, +will be left to the nurses), or to put her heart into any work +whatsoever: and all because she loves nobody and nothing but +yourself. She may be patently ill, yet she will say not a word to +you about it, for fear of distressing you. She may be patently +ennuyee, yet for your sake she will be prepared to be so for the +rest of her life. She may be patently depressed because you stick +so persistently to your occupations (whether sport, books, +farming, state service, or anything else) and see clearly that +they are doing you harm; yet, for all that, she will keep +silence, and suffer it to be so. Yet, should you but fall sick-- +and, despite her own ailments and your prayers that she will not +distress herself in vain, your loving wife will remain sitting +inseparably by your bedside. Every moment you will feel her +sympathetic gaze resting upon you and, as it were, saying: +"There! I told you so, but it is all one to me, and I shall not +leave you." In the morning you maybe a little better, and move +into another room. The room, however, will be insufficiently +warmed or set in order; the soup which alone you feel you could +eat will not have been cooked; nor will any medicine have been +sent for. Yet, though worn out with night watching, your loving +wife will continue to regard you with an expression of sympathy, +to walk about on tiptoe, and to whisper unaccustomed and obscure +orders to the servants. You may wish to be read to--and your +loving wife will tell you with a sigh that she feels sure you +will be unable to hear her reading, and only grow angry at her +awkwardness in doing it; wherefore you had better not be read to +at all. You may wish to walk about the room--and she will tell you +that it would be far better for you not to do so. You may wish to +talk with some friends who have called--and she will tell you that +talking is not good for you. At nightfall the fever may come upon +you again, and you may wish to be left alone whereupon your +loving wife, though wasted, pale, and full of yawns, will go on +sitting in a chair opposite you, as dusk falls, until her very +slightest movement, her very slightest sound, rouses you to +feelings of anger and impatience. You may have a servant who has +lived with you for twenty years, and to whom you are attached, +and who would tend you well and to your satisfaction during the +night, for the reason that he has been asleep all day and is, +moreover, paid a salary for his services; yet your wife will not +suffer him to wait upon you. No; everything she must do herself +with her weak, unaccustomed fingers (of which you follow the +movements with suppressed irritation as those pale members do +their best to uncork a medicine bottle, to snuff a candle, to +pour out physic, or to touch you in a squeamish sort of way). If +you are an impatient, hasty sort of man, and beg of her to leave +the room, you will hear by the vexed, distressed sounds which +come from her that she is humbly sobbing and weeping behind the +door, and whispering foolishness of some kind to the servant. +Finally if you do not die, your loving wife--who has not slept +during the whole three weeks of your illness (a fact of which she +will constantly remind you)--will fall ill in her turn, waste +away, suffer much, and become even more incapable of any useful +pursuit than she was before; while by the time that you have +regained your normal state of health she will express to you her +self-sacrificing affection only by shedding around you +a kind of benignant dullness which involuntarily communicates +itself both to yourself and to every one else in your vicinity. + +The third kind of love--practical love--consists of a yearning to +satisfy every need, every desire, every caprice, nay, every vice, +of the being beloved. People who love thus always love their life +long, since, the more they love, the more they get to know the +object beloved, and the easier they find the task of loving it-- +that is to say, of satisfying its desires. Their love seldom +finds expression in words, but if it does so, it expresses itself +neither with assurance nor beauty, but rather in a shamefaced, +awkward manner, since people of this kind invariably have +misgivings that they are loving unworthily. People of this kind +love even the faults of their adored one, for the reason that +those faults afford them the power of constantly satisfying new +desires. They look for their affection to be returned, and even +deceive themselves into believing that it is returned, and are +happy accordingly: yet in the reverse case they will still +continue to desire happiness for their beloved one, and try by +every means in their power--whether moral or material, great or +small--to provide it. + +Such practical love it was--love for her nephew, for her niece, +for her sister, for Lubov Sergievna, and even for myself, because +I loved Dimitri--that shone in the eyes, as well as in the every +word and movement, of Sophia Ivanovna. + +Only long afterwards did I learn to value her at her true worth. +Yet even now the question occurred to me: "What has made Dimitri-- +who throughout has tried to understand love differently to other +young fellows, and has always had before his eyes the gentle, +loving Sophia Ivanovna--suddenly fall so deeply in love with the +incomprehensible Lubov Sergievna, and declare that in his aunt he +can only find good QUALITIES? Verily it is a true saying that 'a +prophet hath no honour in his own country.' One of two things: +either every man has in him more of bad than of good, or every +man is more receptive to bad than to good. Lubov Sergievna he has +not known for long, whereas his aunt's love he has known since +the day of his birth." + +XXV + +I BECOME BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH THE NECHLUDOFFS + +WHEN I returned to the verandah, I found that they were not +talking of me at all, as I had anticipated. On the contrary, +Varenika had laid aside the book, and was engaged in a heated +dispute with Dimitri, who, for his part, was walking up and down +the verandah, and frowningly adjusting his neck in his collar as +he did so. The subject of the quarrel seemed to be Ivan +Yakovlevitch and superstition, but it was too animated a +difference for its underlying cause not to be something which +concerned the family much more nearly. Although the Princess and +Lubov Sergievna were sitting by in silence, they were following +every word, and evidently tempted at times to take part in the +dispute; yet always, just when they were about to speak, they +checked themselves, and left the field clear for the two +principles, Dimitri and Varenika. On my entry, the latter glanced +at me with such an indifferent air that I could see she was +wholly absorbed in the quarrel and did not care whether she spoke +in my presence or not. The Princess too looked the same, and was +clearly on Varenika's side, while Dimitri began, if anything, to +raise his voice still more when I appeared, and Lubov Sergievna, +for her part, observed to no one in particular: "Old people are +quite right when they say, 'Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse +pouvait.'" + +Nevertheless this quotation did not check the dispute, though it +somehow gave me the impression that the side represented by the +speaker and her friend was in the wrong. Although it was a little +awkward for me to be present at a petty family difference, the +fact that the true relations of the family revealed themselves +during its progress, and that my presence did nothing to hinder +that revelation, afforded me considerable gratification. + +How often it happens that for years one sees a family cover +themselves over with a conventional cloak of decorum, and +preserve the real relations of its members a secret from every +eye! How often, too, have I remarked that, the more impenetrable +(and therefore the more decorous) is the cloak, the harsher are +the relations which it conceals! Yet, once let some unexpected +question--often a most trivial one (the colour of a woman's hair, +a visit, a man's horses, and so forth)--arise in that family +circle, and without any visible cause there will also arise an +ever-growing difference, until in time the cloak of decorum +becomes unequal to confining the quarrel within due bounds, and, +to the dismay of the disputants and the astonishment of the +auditors, the real and ill-adjusted relations of the family are +laid bare, and the cloak, now useless for concealment, is bandied +from hand to hand among the contending factions until it serves +only to remind one of the years during which it successfully +deceived one's perceptions. Sometimes to strike one's head +violently against a ceiling hurts one less than just to graze +some spot which has been hurt and bruised before: and in almost +every family there exists some such raw and tender spot. In the +Nechludoff family that spot was Dimitri's extraordinary affection +for Lubov Sergievna, which aroused in the mother and sister, if +not a jealous feeling, at all events a sense of hurt family +pride. This was the grave significance which underlay, for all +those present, the seeming dispute about Ivan Yakovlevitch and +superstition. + +"In anything that other people deride and despise you invariably +profess to see something extraordinarily good!" Varenika was +saying in her clear voice, as she articulated each syllable with +careful precision. + +"Indeed?" retorted Dimitri with an impatient toss of his head. +"Now, in the first place, only a most unthinking person could +ever speak of DESPISING such a remarkable man as Ivan +Yakovlevitch, while, in the second place, it is YOU who +invariably profess to see nothing good in what confronts you." + +Meanwhile Sophia Ivanovna kept looking anxiously at us as she +turned first to her nephew, and then to her niece, and then to +myself. Twice she opened her mouth as though to say what was in +her mind and drew a deep sigh. + +"Varia, PLEASE go on reading," she said at length, at the same +time handing her niece the book, and patting her hand kindly. "I +wish to know whether he ever found HER again " (as a matter of +fact, the novel in question contained not a word about any one +finding any one else). "And, Mitia dear," she added to her +nephew, despite the glum looks which he was throwing at her for +having interrupted the logical thread of his deductions, "you had +better let me poultice your cheek, or your teeth will begin to +ache again." + +After that the reading was resumed. Yet the quarrel had in no way +dispelled the calm atmosphere of family and intellectual harmony +which enveloped this circle of ladies. + +Clearly deriving its inspiration and character from the Princess +Maria Ivanovna, it was a circle which, for me, had a wholly novel +and attractive character of logicalness mingled with simplicity +and refinement. That character I could discern in the daintiness, +good taste, and solidity of everything about me, whether the +handbell, the binding of the book, the settee, or the table. +Likewise, I divined it in the upright, well-corseted pose of the +Princess, in her pendant curls of grey hair, in the manner in +which she had, at our first introduction, called me plain +"Nicolas" and "he," in the occupations of the ladies (the +reading and the sewing of garments), and in the unusual whiteness +of their hands. Those hands, en passant, showed a family feature +common to all--namely, the feature that the flesh of the palm on +the outer side was rosy in colour, and divided by a sharp, +straight line from the pure whiteness of the upper portion of the +hand. Still more was the character of this feminine circle +expressed in the manner in which the three ladies spoke Russian +and French--spoke them, that is to say, with perfect articulation +of syllables and pedantic accuracy of substantives and +prepositions. All this, and more especially the fact that the +ladies treated me as simply and as seriously as a real grown-up-- +telling me their opinions, and listening to my own (a thing to +which I was so little accustomed that, for all my glittering +buttons and blue facings, I was in constant fear of being told: +"Surely you do not think that we are talking SERIOUSLY to you? Go +away and learn something")--all this, I say, caused me to feel an +entire absence of restraint in this society. I ventured at times +to rise, to move about, and to talk boldly to each of the ladies +except Varenika (whom I always felt it was unbecoming, or even +forbidden, for me to address unless she first spoke to me). + +As I listened to her clear, pleasant voice reading aloud, I kept +glancing from her to the path of the flower-garden, where the +rain-spots were making small dark circles in the sand, and thence +to the lime-trees, upon the leaves of which the rain was +pattering down in large detached drops shed from the pale, +shimmering edge of the livid blue cloud which hung suspended over +us. Then I would glance at her again, and then at the last purple +rays of the setting sun where they were throwing the dense +clusters of old, rain-washed birches into brilliant relief. Yet +again my eyes would return to Varenika, and, each time that they +did so, it struck me afresh that she was not nearly so plain as +at first I had thought her. + +"How I wish that I wasn't in love already!" I reflected, "or that +Sonetchka was Varenika! How nice it would be if suddenly I could +become a member of this family, and have the three ladies for my +mother, aunt, and wife respectively!" All the time that these +thoughts kept passing through my head I kept attentively +regarding Varenika as she read, until somehow I felt as though I +were magnetising her, and that presently she must look at me. +Sure enough, at length she raised her head, threw me a glance, +and, meeting my eyes, turned away. + +"The rain does not seem to stop," she remarked. + +Suddenly a new feeling came over me. I began to feel as though +everything now happening to me was a repetition of some similar +occurrence before--as though on some previous occasion a shower +of rain had begun to fall, and the sun had set behind birch- +trees, and I had been looking at her, and she had been reading +aloud, and I had magnetised her, and she had looked up at me. +Yes, all this I seemed to recall as though it had happened once +before. + +"Surely she is not--SHE?" was my thought. "Surely IT is not +beginning?" However, I soon decided that Varenika was not the +"SHE" referred to, and that "it" was not "beginning." "In the +first place," I said to myself, "Varenika is not at all +BEAUTIFUL. She is just an ordinary girl whose acquaintance I have +made in the ordinary way, whereas the she whom I shall meet +somewhere and some day and in some not ordinary way will be +anything but ordinary. This family pleases me so much only +because hitherto I have never seen anybody. Such things will +always be happening in the future, and I shall see many more such +families during my life." + +XXVI + +I SHOW OFF + +AT tea time the reading came to an end, and the ladies began to +talk among themselves of persons and things unknown to me. This I +conceived them to be doing on purpose to make me conscious (for +all their kind demeanour) of the difference which years and +position in the world had set between them and myself. In general +discussions, however, in which I could take part I sought to +atone for my late silence by exhibiting that extraordinary +cleverness and originality to which I felt compelled by my +University uniform. For instance, when the conversation turned +upon country houses, I said that Prince Ivan Ivanovitch had a +villa near Moscow which people came to see even from London and +Paris, and that it contained balustrading which had cost 380,000 +roubles. Likewise, I remarked that the Prince was a very near +relation of mine, and that, when lunching with him the same day, +he had invited me to go and spend the entire summer with him at +that villa, but that I had declined, since I knew the villa well, +and had stayed in it more than once, and that all those +balustradings and bridges did not interest me, since I could not +bear ornamental work, especially in the country, where I liked +everything to be wholly countrified. After delivering myself of +this extraordinary and complicated romance, I grew confused, and +blushed so much that every one must have seen that I was lying. +Both Varenika, who was handing me a cup of tea, and Sophia +Ivanovna, who had been gazing at me throughout, turned their +heads away, and began to talk of something else with an +expression which I afterwards learnt that good-natured people +assume when a very young man has told them a manifest string of +lies--an expression which says, "Yes, we know he is lying, and +why he is doing it, the poor young fellow!" + +What I had said about Prince Ivan Ivanovitch having a country +villa, I had related simply because I could find no other pretext +for mentioning both my relationship to the Prince and the fact +that I had been to luncheon with him that day; yet why I had said +all I had about the balustrading costing 380,000 roubles, and +about my having several times visited the Prince at that villa (I +had never once been there--more especially since the Prince +possessed no residences save in Moscow and Naples, as the +Nechludoffs very well knew), I could not possibly tell you. +Neither in childhood nor in adolescence nor in riper years did I +ever remark in myself the vice of falsehood--on the contrary, I +was, if anything, too outspoken and truthful. Yet, during this +first stage of my manhood, I often found myself seized with a +strange and unreasonable tendency to lie in the most desperate +fashion. I say advisedly "in the most desperate fashion," for the +reason that I lied in matters in which it was the easiest thing +in the world to detect me. On the whole I think that a vain- +glorious desire to appear different from what I was, combined +with an impossible hope that the lie would never be found out, +was the chief cause of this extraordinary impulse. + +After tea, since the rain had stopped and the after-glow of +sunset was calm and clear, the Princess proposed that we should +go and stroll in the lower garden, and admire her favourite spots +there. Following my rule to be always original, and conceiving +that clever people like myself and the Princess must surely be +above the banalities of politeness, I replied that I could not +bear a walk with no object in view, and that, if I DID walk, I +liked to walk alone. I had no idea that this speech was simply +rude; all I thought was that, even as nothing could be more +futile than empty compliments, so nothing could be more pleasing +and original than a little frank brusquerie. However, though much +pleased with my answer, I set out with the rest of the company. + +The Princess's favourite spot of all was at the very bottom of +the lower garden, where a little bridge spanned a narrow piece of +swamp. The view there was very restricted, yet very intimate and +pleasing. We are so accustomed to confound art with nature that, +often enough, phenomena of nature which are never to be met with +in pictures seem to us unreal, and give us the impression that +nature is unnatural, or vice versa; whereas phenomena of nature +which occur with too much frequency in pictures seem to us +hackneyed, and views which are to be met with in real life, but +which appear to us too penetrated with a single idea or a single +sentiment, seem to us arabesques. The view from the Princess's +favourite spot was as follows. On the further side of a small +lake, over-grown with weeds round its edges, rose a steep ascent +covered with bushes and with huge old trees of many shades of +green, while, overhanging the lake at the foot of the ascent, +stood an ancient birch tree which, though partly supported by +stout roots implanted in the marshy bank of the lake, rested its +crown upon a tall, straight poplar, and dangled its curved +branches over the smooth surface of the pond--both branches and +the surrounding greenery being reflected therein as in a mirror. + +"How lovely!" said the Princess with a nod of her head, and +addressing no one in particular. + +"Yes, marvellous!" I replied in my desire to show that had an +opinion of my own on every subject. "Yet somehow it all looks to +me so terribly like a scheme of decoration." + +The Princess went on gazing at the scene as though she had not +heard me, and turning to her sister and Lubov Sergievna at +intervals, in order to point out to them its details--especially +a curved, pendent bough, with its reflection in the water, which +particularly pleased her. Sophia Ivanovna observed to me that it +was all very beautiful, and that she and her sister would +sometimes spend hours together at this spot; yet it was clear +that her remarks were meant merely to please the Princess. I have +noticed that people who are gifted with the faculty of loving are +seldom receptive to the beauties of nature. Lubov Sergievna also +seemed enraptured, and asked (among other things), "How does that +birch tree manage to support itself? Has it stood there long?" +Yet the next moment she became absorbed in contemplation of her +little dog Susetka, which, with its stumpy paws pattering to and +fro upon the bridge in a mincing fashion, seemed to say by the +expression of its face that this was the first time it had ever +found itself out of doors. As for Dimitri, he fell to discoursing +very logically to his mother on the subject of how no view can be +beautiful of which the horizon is limited. Varenika alone said +nothing. Glancing at her, I saw that she was leaning over the +parapet of the bridge, her profile turned towards me, and gazing +straight in front of her. Something seemed to be interesting her +deeply, or even affecting her, since it was clear that she was +oblivious to her surroundings, and thinking neither of herself +nor of the fact that any one might be regarding her. In the +expression of her large eyes there was nothing but wrapt +attention and quiet, concentrated thought, while her whole +attitude seemed so unconstrained and, for all her shortness, so +dignified that once more some recollection or another touched me +and once more I asked myself, "Is IT, then, beginning?" Yet again +I assured myself that I was already in love with Sonetchka, and +that Varenika was only an ordinary girl, the sister of my friend. +Though she pleased me at that moment, I somehow felt a vague +desire to show her, by word or deed, some small unfriendliness. + +"I tell you what, Dimitri," I said to my friend as I moved nearer +to Varenika, so that she might overhear what I was going to say, +"it seems to me that, even if there had been no mosquitos here, +there would have been nothing to commend this spot; whereas "-- +and here I slapped my cheek, and in very truth annihilated one of +those insects--"it is simply awful." + +"Then you do not care for nature?" said Varenika without turning +her head. + +"I think it a foolish, futile pursuit," I replied, well satisfied +that I had said something to annoy her, as well as something +original. Varenika only raised her eyebrows a little, with an +expression of pity, and went on gazing in front of her as calmly +as before. + +I felt vexed with her. Yet, for all that, the rusty, paint- +blistered parapet on which she was leaning, the way in which the +dark waters of the pond reflected the drooping branch of the +overhanging birch tree (it almost seemed to me as though branch +and its reflection met), the rising odour of the swamp, the +feeling of crushed mosquito on my cheek, and her absorbed look +and statuesque pose--many times afterwards did these things +recur with unexpected vividness to my recollection. + +XXVII + +DIMITRI + +WHEN we returned to the house from our stroll, Varenika declined +to sing as she usually did in the evenings, and I was conceited +enough to attribute this to my doing, in the belief that its +reason lay in what I had said on the bridge. The Nechludoffs +never had supper, and went to bed early, while to-night, since +Dimitri had the toothache (as Sophia Ivanovna had foretold), he +departed with me to his room even earlier than usual. Feeling +that I had done all that was required of me by my blue collar and +gilt buttons, and that every one was very pleased with me, I was +in a gratified, complacent mood, while Dimitri, on the other +hand, was rendered by his quarrel with his sister and the +toothache both taciturn and gloomy. He sat down at the table, got +out a couple of notebooks--a diary and the copy-book in which it +was his custom every evening to inscribe the tasks performed by +or awaiting him--and, continually frowning and touching his cheek +with his hand, continued writing for a while. + +"Oh, DO leave me alone!" he cried to the maid whom Sophia +Ivanovna sent to ask him whether his teeth were still hurting +him, and whether he would not like to have a poultice made. Then, +saying that my bed would soon be ready for me and that he would +be back presently, he departed to Lubov Sergievna's room. + +"What a pity that Varenika is not good-looking and, in general, +Sonetchka!" I reflected when I found myself alone. "How nice it +would be if, after I have left the University, I could go to her +and offer her my hand! I would say to her, 'Princess, though no +longer young, and therefore unable to love passionately, I will +cherish you as a dear sister. And you,' I would continue to her +mother, 'I greatly respect; and you, Sophia Ivanovna, I value +highly. Therefore say to me, Varenika (since I ask you to be my +wife), just the simple and direct word YES.' And she would give +me her hand, and I should press it, and say, 'Mine is a love +which depends not upon words, but upon deeds.' And suppose," next +came into my head, "that Dimitri should suddenly fall in love +with Lubotshka (as Lubotshka has already done with him), and +should desire to marry her? Then either one or the other of us +would have to resign all thought of marriage. Well, it would be +splendid, for in that case I should act thus. As soon as I had +noticed how things were, I should make no remark, but go to +Dimitri and say, 'It is no use, my friend, for you and I to +conceal our feelings from one another. You know that my love for +your sister will terminate only with my life. Yet I know all; and +though you have deprived me of all hope, and have rendered me an +unhappy man, so that Nicolas Irtenieff will have to bewail his +misery for the rest of his existence, yet do you take my sister,' +and I should lay his hand in Lubotshka's. Then he would say to +me, 'No, not for all the world!' and I should reply, 'Prince +Nechludoff, it is in vain for you to attempt to outdo me in +nobility. Not in the whole world does there exist a more +magnanimous being than Nicolas Irtenieff.' Then I should salute +him and depart. In tears Dimitri and Lubotshka would pursue me, +and entreat me to accept their sacrifice, and I should consent to +do so, and, perhaps, be happy ever afterwards--if only I were in +love with Varenika." These fancies tickled my imagination so +pleasantly that I felt as though I should like to communicate +them to my friend; yet, despite our mutual vow of frankness, I +also felt as though I had not the physical energy to do so. + +Dimitri returned from Lubov Sergievna's room with some toothache +capsules which she had given him, yet in even greater pain, and +therefore in even greater depression, than before. Evidently no +bedroom had yet been prepared for me, for presently the boy who +acted as Dimitri's valet arrived to ask him where I was to sleep. + +"Oh, go to the devil!" cried Dimitri, stamping his foot. "Vasika, +Vasika, Vasika!" he went on, the instant that the boy had left +the room, with a gradual raising of his voice at each repetition. +" Vasika, lay me out a bed on the floor." + +"No, let ME sleep on the floor," I objected. + +"Well, it is all one. Lie anywhere you like," continued Dimitri +in the same angry tone. "Vasika, why don't you go and do what I +tell you? " + +Evidently Vasika did not understand what was demanded of him, for +he remained where he was. + +"What is the matter with you? Go and lay the bed, Vasika, I tell +you!" shouted Dimitri, suddenly bursting into a sort of frenzy; +yet Vasika still did not understand, but, blushing hotly, stood +motionless. + +"So you are determined to drive me mad, are you?"--and leaping +from his chair and rushing upon the boy, Dimitri struck him on +the head with the whole weight of his fist, until the boy rushed +headlong from the room. Halting in the doorway, Dimitri glanced +at me, and the expression of fury and pain which had sat for a +moment on his countenance suddenly gave place to such a boyish, +kindly, affectionate, yet ashamed, expression that I felt sorry +for him, and reconsidered my intention of leaving him to himself. +He said nothing, but for a long time paced the room in silence, +occasionally glancing at me with the same deprecatory expression +as before. Then he took his notebook from the table, wrote +something in it, took off his jacket and folded it carefully, +and, stepping into the corner where the ikon hung, knelt down and +began to say his prayers, with his large white hands folded upon +his breast. So long did he pray that Vasika had time to bring a +mattress and spread it, under my whispered directions, on the +floor. Indeed, I had undressed and laid myself down upon the +mattress before Dimitri had finished. As I contemplated his +slightly rounded back and the soles of his feet (which somehow +seemed to stick out in my direction in a sort of repentant +fashion whenever he made his obeisances), I felt that I liked him +more than ever, and debated within myself whether or not I should +tell him all I had been fancying concerning our respective +sisters. When he had finished his prayers, he lay down upon the +bed near me, and, propping himself upon his elbow, looked at me +in silence, with a kindly, yet abashed, expression. Evidently he +found it difficult to do this, yet meant thus to punish himself. +Then I smiled and returned his gaze, and he smiled back at me. + +"Why do you not tell me that my conduct has been abominable?" he +said. "You have been thinking so, have you not?" + +"Yes," I replied; and although it was something quite different +which had been in my mind, it now seemed to me that that was what +I had been thinking. "Yes, it was not right of you, nor should I +have expected it of you." It pleased me particularly at that +moment to call him by the familiar second person singular. "But +how are your teeth now?" I added. + +"Oh, much better. Nicolinka, my friend," he went on, and so +feelingly that it sounded as though tears were standing in his +eyes, "I know and feel that I am bad, but God sees how I try to +be better, and how I entreat Him to make me so. Yet what am I to +do with such an unfortunate, horrible nature as mine? What am I +to do with it? I try to keep myself in hand and to rule myself, +but suddenly it becomes impossible for me to do so--at all events, +impossible for me to do so unaided. I need the help and support +of some one. Now, there is Lubov Sergievna; SHE understands me, +and could help me in this, and I know by my notebook that I have +greatly improved in this respect during the past year. Ah, my +dear Nicolinka"--he spoke with the most unusual and unwonted +tenderness, and in a tone which had grown calmer now that he had +made his confession--" how much the influence of a woman like +Lubov could do for me! Think how good it would be for me if I +could have a friend like her to live with when I have become +independent! With her I should be another man." + +And upon that Dimitri began to unfold to me his plans for +marriage, for a life in the country, and for continual self- +discipline. + +"Yes, I will live in the country," he said, "and you shall come +to see me when you have married Sonetchka. Our children shall +play together. All this may seem to you stupid and ridiculous, +yet it may very well come to pass." + +"Yes, it very well may " I replied with a smile, yet thinking how +much nicer it would be if I married his sister. + +"I tell you what," he went on presently; "you only imagine +yourself to be in love with Sonetchka, whereas I can see that it +is all rubbish, and that you do not really know what love means." + +I did not protest, for, in truth, I almost agreed with him, and +for a while we lay without speaking. + +"Probably you have noticed that I have been in my old bad humour +today, and have had a nasty quarrel with Varia?" he resumed. "I +felt bad about it afterwards--more particularly since it occurred +in your presence. Although she thinks wrongly on some subjects, +she is a splendid girl and very good, as you will soon +recognise." + +His quick transition from mention of my love affairs to praise of +his sister pleased me extremely, and made me blush, but I +nevertheless said nothing more about his sister, and we went on +talking of other things. + +Thus we chattered until the cocks had crowed twice. In fact, the +pale dawn was already looking in at the window when at last +Dimitri lay down upon his bed and put out the candle. + +"Well, now for sleep," he said. + +"Yes," I replied, " but--" + +"But what?" + +"Now nice it is to be alive in the daylight!" + +"Yes, it IS a splendid thing! " he replied in a voice which, even +in the darkness, enabled me to see the expression of his +cheerful, kindly eyes and boyish smile. + +XXVIII + +IN THE COUNTRY + +Next day Woloda and myself departed in a post-chaise for the +country. Turning over various Moscow recollections in my head as +we drove along, I suddenly recalled Sonetchka Valakhin--though +not until evening, and when we had already covered five stages of +the road. "It is a strange thing," I thought, "that I should be +in love, and yet have forgotten all about it. I must start and +think about her," and straightway I proceeded to do so, but only +in the way that one thinks when travelling--that is to say, +disconnectedly, though vividly. Thus I brought myself to such a +condition that, for the first two days after our arrival home, I +somehow considered it incumbent upon me always to appear sad and +moody in the presence of the household, and especially before +Katenka, whom I looked upon as a great connoisseur in matters of +this kind, and to whom I threw out a hint of the condition in +which my heart was situated. Yet, for all my attempts at +dissimulation and assiduous adoption of such signs of love +sickness as I had occasionally observed in other people, I only +succeeded for two days (and that at intervals, and mostly towards +evening) in reminding myself of the fact that I was in love, and +finally, when I had settled down into the new rut of country life +and pursuits, I forgot about my affection for Sonetchka +altogether. + +We arrived at Petrovskoe in the night time, and I was then so +soundly asleep that I saw nothing of the house as we approached +it, nor yet of the avenue of birch trees, nor yet of the +household--all of whom had long ago betaken themselves to bed and +to slumber. Only old hunchbacked Foka--bare-footed, clad in some +sort of a woman's wadded nightdress, and carrying a candlestick-- +opened the door to us. As soon as he saw who we were, he trembled +all over with joy, kissed us on the shoulders, hurriedly put on +his felt slippers, and started to dress himself properly. I +passed in a semi-waking condition through the porch and up the +steps, but in the hall the lock of the door, the bars and bolts, +the crooked boards of the flooring, the chest, the ancient +candelabrum (splashed all over with grease as of old), the +shadows thrown by the crooked, chill, recently-lighted stump of +candle, the perennially dusty, unopened window behind which I +remembered sorrel to have grown--all was so familiar, so full of +memories, so intimate of aspect, so, as it were, knit together by +a single idea, that I suddenly became conscious of a tenderness +for this quiet old house. Involuntarily I asked myself, "How have +we, the house and I, managed to remain apart so long?" and, +hurrying from spot to spot, ran to see if all the other rooms +were still the same. Yes, everything was unchanged, except that +everything had become smaller and lower, and I myself taller, +heavier, and more filled out. Yet, even as I was, the old house +received me back into its arms, and aroused in me with every +board, every window, every step of the stairs, and every sound +the shadows of forms, feelings, and events of the happy but +irrevocable past. When we entered our old night nursery, all my +childish fears lurked once more in the darkness of the corners +and doorway. When we passed into the drawing-room, I could feel +the old calm motherly love diffusing itself from every object in +the apartment. In the breakfast-room, the noisy, careless +merriment of childhood seemed merely to be waiting to wake to +life again. In the divannaia (whither Foka first conducted us, +and where he had prepared our beds) everything--mirror, screen, +old wooden ikon, the lumps on the walls covered with white paper-- +seemed to speak of suffering and of death and of what would never +come back to us again. + +We got into bed, and Foka, bidding us good-night, retired. + +"It was in this room that Mamma died, was it not?" said Woloda. + +I made no reply, but pretended to be asleep. If I had said +anything I should have burst into tears. On awaking next morning, +I beheld Papa sitting on Woloda's bed in his dressing gown and +slippers and smoking a cigar. Leaping up with a merry hoist of +the shoulders, he came over to me, slapped me on the back with +his great hand, and presented me his cheek to press my lips to. + +"Well done, DIPLOMAT!" he said in his most kindly jesting tone as +he looked at me with his small bright eyes. "Woloda tells me you +have passed the examinations well for a youngster, and that is a +splendid thing. Unless you start and play the fool, I shall have +another fine little fellow in you. Thanks, my dear boy. Well, we +will have a grand time of it here now, and in the winter, +perhaps, we shall move to St. Petersburg. I only wish the hunting +was not over yet, or I could have given you some amusement in +THAT way. Can you shoot, Woldemar? However, whether there is any +game or not, I will take you out some day. Next winter, if God +pleases, we will move to St. Petersburg, and you shall meet +people, and make friends, for you are now my two young grown-ups. +I have been telling Woldemar that you are just starting on your +careers, whereas my day is ended. You are old enough now to walk +by yourselves, but, whenever you wish to confide in me, pray do +so, for I am no longer your nurse, but your friend. At least, I +will be your friend and comrade and adviser as much as I can and +more than that I cannot do. How does that fall in with your +philosophy, eh, Koko? Well or ill, eh?" + +Of course I said that it fell in with it entirely, and, indeed, I +really thought so. That morning Papa had a particularly winning, +bright, and happy expression on his face, and these new relations +between us, as of equals and comrades, made me love him all the +more. + +"Now, tell me," he went on, "did you call upon all our kinsfolk +and the Iwins? Did you see the old man, and what did he say to +you? And did you go to Prince Ivan's?" + +We continued talking so long that, before we were fully dressed, +the sun had left the window of the divannaia, and Jakoff (the +same old man who of yore had twirled his fingers behind his back +and always repeated his words) had entered the room and reported +to Papa that the carriage was ready. + +"Where are you going to?" I asked Papa. + +"Oh, I had forgotten all about it!" he replied, with a cough and +the usual hoisting of his shoulder. "I promised to go and call +upon Epifanova to-day. You remember Epifanova--'la belle +Flamande'--don't you, who used to come and see your Mamma? They +are nice people." And with a self-conscious shrug of his +shoulders (so it appeared to me) Papa left the room. + +During our conversation, Lubotshka had more than once come to the +door and asked "Can I come in?" but Papa had always shouted to +her that she could not do so, since we were not dressed yet. + +"What rubbish!" she replied. "Why, I have seen you in your +dressing-gown." + +"Never mind; you cannot see your brothers without their +inexpressibles," rejoined Papa. "If they each of them just go to +the door, let that be enough for you. Now go. Even for them to +SPEAK to you in such a neglige costume is unbecoming." + +"How unbearable you are!" was Lubotshka's parting retort. "Well, +at least hurry up and come down to the drawing-room, for Mimi +wants to see them." + +As soon as Papa had left the room, I hastened to array myself in +my student's uniform, and to repair to the drawing-room. + +Woloda, on the other hand, was in no hurry, but remained sitting +on his bed and talking to Jakoff about the best places to find +plover and snipe. As I have said, there was nothing in the world +he so much feared as to be suspected of any affection for his +father, brother, and sister; so that, to escape any expression of +that feeling, he often fell into the other extreme, and affected +a coldness which shocked people who did not comprehend its cause. +In the hall, I collided with Papa, who was hurrying towards the +carriage with short, rapid steps. He had a new and fashionable +Moscow greatcoat on, and smelt of scent. On seeing me, he gave a +cheerful nod, as much as to say, "Do you remark my splendour?" +and once again I was struck with the happy expression of face +which I had noted earlier in the morning. + +The drawing-room looked the same lofty, bright room as of Yore, +with its brown English piano, and its large open windows looking +on to the green trees and yellowish-red paths of the garden. +After kissing Mimi and Lubotshka, I was approaching Katenka for +the same purpose when it suddenly struck me that it might be +improper for me to salute her in that fashion. Accordingly I +halted, silent and blushing. Katenka, for her part, was quite at +her ease as she held out a white hand to me and congratulated me +on my passing into the University. The same thing took place when +Woloda entered the drawing-room and met Katenka. Indeed, it was +something of a problem how, after being brought up together and +seeing one another daily, we ought now, after this first +separation, to meet again. Katenka had grown better-looking than +any of us, yet Woloda seemed not at all confused as, with a +slight bow to her, he crossed over to Lubotshka, made a jesting +remark to her, and then departed somewhere on some solitary +expedition. + +XXIX + +RELATIONS BETWEEN THE GIRLS AND OURSELVES + +OF the girls Woloda took the strange view that, although he +wished that they should have enough to eat, should sleep well, be +well dressed, and avoid making such mistakes in French as would +shame him before strangers, he would never admit that they could +think or feel like human beings, still less that they could +converse with him sensibly about anything. Whenever they +addressed to him a serious question (a thing, by the way, which +he always tried to avoid), such as asking his opinion on a novel +or inquiring about his doings at the University, he invariably +pulled a grimace, and either turned away without speaking or +answered with some nonsensical French phrase--"Comme c'est tres +jolie!" or the like. Or again, feigning to look serious and +stolidly wise, he would say something absolutely meaningless and +bearing no relation whatever to the question asked him, or else +suddenly exclaim, with a look of pretended unconsciousness, the +word bulku or poyechali or kapustu, [Respectively, " roll of +butter," "away," and " cabbage."] or something of the kind; and +when, afterwards, I happened to repeat these words to him as +having been told me by Lubotshka or Katenka, he would always +remark: + +"Hm! So you actually care about talking to them? I can see you +are a duffer still"--and one needed to see and near him to +appreciate the profound, immutable contempt which echoed in this +remark. He had been grown-up now two years, and was in love with +every good-looking woman that he met; yet, despite the fact that +he came in daily contact with Katenka (who during those two years +had been wearing long dresses, and was growing prettier every +day), the possibility of his falling in love with her never +seemed to enter his head. Whether this proceeded from the fact +that the prosaic recollections of childhood were still too fresh +in his memory, or whether from the aversion which very young +people feel for everything domestic, or whether from the common +human weakness which, at a first encounter with anything fair and +pretty, leads a man to say to himself, "Ah! I shall meet much +more of the same kind during my life," but at all events Woloda +had never yet looked upon Katenka with a man's eyes. + +All that summer Woloda appeared to find things very wearisome--a +fact which arose out of that contempt for us all which, as I have +said, he made no effort to conceal. His expression of face seemed +to be constantly saying, "Phew! how it bores me to have no one to +speak to!" The first thing in the morning he would go out +shooting, or sit reading a book in his room, and not dress until +luncheon time. Indeed, if Papa was not at home, he would take his +book into that meal, and go on reading it without addressing so +much as a single word to any one of us, who felt, somehow, guilty +in his presence. In the evening, too, he would stretch himself on +a settee in the drawing-room, and either go to sleep, propped on +his elbow, or tell us farcical stories--sometimes stories so +improper as to make Mimi grow angry and blush, and ourselves die +with laughter. At other times he would not condescend to address +a single serious word to any member of the family except Papa or +(occasionally) myself. Involuntarily I offended against his view +of girls, seeing that I was not so afraid of seeming affectionate +as he, and, moreover, had not such a profound and confirmed +contempt for young women. Yet several times that summer, when +driven by lack of amusement to try and engage Lubotshka and +Katenka in conversation, I always encountered in them such an +absence of any capacity for logical thinking, and such an +ignorance of the simplest, most ordinary matters (as, for +instance, the nature of money, the subjects studied at +universities, the effect of war, and so forth), as well as such +indifference to my explanations of such matters, that these +attempts of mine only ended in confirming my unfavourable opinion +of feminine ability. + +I remember one evening when Lubotshka kept repeating some +unbearably tedious passage on the piano about a hundred times in +succession, while Woloda, who was dozing on a settee in the +drawing-room, kept addressing no one in particular as +he muttered, "Lord! how she murders it! WHAT a musician! WHAT a +Beethoven!" (he always pronounced the composer's name with +especial irony). "Wrong again! Now--a second time! That's it!" +and so on. Meanwhile Katenka and I were sitting by the tea-table, +and somehow she began to talk about her favourite subject--love. +I was in the right frame of mind to philosophise, and began by +loftily defining love as the wish to acquire in another what one +does not possess in oneself. To this Katenka retorted that, on +the contrary, love is not love at all if a girl desires to marry +a man for his money alone, but that, in her opinion, riches were +a vain thing, and true love only the affection which can stand +the test of separation (this I took to be a hint concerning her +love for Dubkoff). At this point Woloda, who must have been +listening all the time, raised himself on his elbow, and cried +out some rubbish or another; and I felt that he was right. + +Apart from the general faculties (more or less developed in +different persons) of intellect, sensibility, and artistic +feeling, there also exists (more or less developed in different +circles of society, and especially in families) a private or +individual faculty which I may call APPREHENSION. The essence of +this faculty lies in sympathetic appreciation of proportion, and +in identical understanding of things. Two individuals who possess +this faculty and belong to the same social circle or the same +family apprehend an expression of feeling precisely to the same +point, namely, the point beyond which such expression becomes +mere phrasing. Thus they apprehend precisely where commendation +ends and irony begins, where attraction ends and pretence begins, +in a manner which would be impossible for persons possessed of a +different order of apprehension. Persons possessed of identical +apprehension view objects in an identically ludicrous, beautiful, +or repellent light; and in order to facilitate such identical +apprehension between members of the same social circle or family, +they usually establish a language, turns of speech, or terms to +define such shades of apprehension as exist for them alone. In +our particular family such apprehension was common to Papa, +Woloda, and myself, and was developed to the highest pitch, +Dubkoff also approximated to our coterie in apprehension, but +Dimitri, though infinitely more intellectual than Dubkoff, was +grosser in this respect. With no one, however, did I bring this +faculty to such a point as with Woloda, who had grown up with me +under identical conditions. Papa stood a long way from us, and +much that was to us as clear as "two and two make four" was to +him incomprehensible. For instance, I and Woloda managed to +establish between ourselves the following terms, with meanings to +correspond. Izium [Raisins.] meant a desire to boast of one's +money; shishka [Bump or swelling.] (on pronouncing which one had +to join one's fingers together, and to put a particular emphasis +upon the two sh's in the word) meant anything fresh, healthy, and +comely, but not elegant; a substantive used in the plural meant +an undue partiality for the object which it denoted; and so +forth, and so forth. At the same time, the meaning depended +considerably upon the expression of the face and the context of +the conversation; so that, no matter what new expression one of +us might invent to define a shade of feeling the other could +immediately understand it by a hint alone. The girls did not +share this faculty of apprehension, and herein lay the chief +cause of our moral estrangement, and of the contempt which we +felt for them. + +It may be that they too had their "apprehension," but it so +little ran with ours that, where we already perceived the +"phrasing," they still saw only the feeling--our irony was for +them truth, and so on. At that time I had not yet learnt to +understand that they were in no way to blame for this, and that +absence of such apprehension in no way prevented them from being +good and clever girls. Accordingly I looked down upon them. +Moreover, having once lit upon my precious idea of "frankness," +and being bent upon applying it to the full in myself, I thought +the quiet, confiding nature of Lubotshka guilty of secretiveness +and dissimulation simply because she saw no necessity for digging +up and examining all her thoughts and instincts. For instance, +the fact that she always signed the sign of the cross over Papa +before going to bed, that she and Katenka invariably wept in +church when attending requiem masses for Mamma, and that Katenka +sighed and rolled her eyes about when playing the piano--all +these things seemed to me sheer make-believe, and I asked myself: +"At what period did they learn to pretend like grown-up people, +and how can they bring themselves to do it?" + +XXX + +HOW I EMPLOYED MY TIME + +Nevertheless, the fact that that summer I developed a passion for +music caused me to become better friends with the ladies of our +household than I had been for years. In the spring, a young fellow +came to see us, armed with a letter of introduction, who, as soon +as ever he entered the drawing-room, fixed his eyes upon the +piano, and kept gradually edging his chair closer to it as he +talked to Mimi and Katenka. After discoursing awhile of the +weather and the amenities of country life, he skilfully directed +the conversation to piano-tuners, music, and pianos generally, +and ended by saying that he himself played--and in truth he did +sit down and perform three waltzes, with Mimi, Lubotshka, and +Katenka grouped about the instrument, and watching him as he did +so. He never came to see us again, but his playing, and his +attitude when at the piano, and the way in which he kept shaking +his long hair, and, most of all, the manner in which he was able +to execute octaves with his left hand as he first of all played +them rapidly with his thumb and little finger, and then slowly +closed those members, and then played the octaves afresh, made a +great impression upon me. This graceful gesture of his, together +with his easy pose and his shaking of hair and successful winning +of the ladies' applause by his talent, ended by firing me to take +up the piano. Convinced that I possessed both talent and a +passion for music, I set myself to learn, and, in doing so, acted +just as millions of the male--still more, of the female--sex have +done who try to teach themselves without a skilled instructor, +without any real turn for the art, or without the smallest +understanding either of what the art can give or of what ought to +be done to obtain that gift. For me music (or rather, piano- +playing) was simply a means of winning the ladies' good graces +through their sensibility. With the help of Katenka I first +learnt the notes (incidentally breaking several of them with my +clumsy fingers), and then--that is to say, after two months of +hard work, supplemented by ceaseless twiddling of my rebellious +fingers on my knees after luncheon, and on the pillow when in +bed--went on to "pieces," which I played (so Katenka assured me) +with "soul" ("avec ame"), but altogether regardless of time. + +My range of pieces was the usual one--waltzes, galops, +"romances," "arrangements," etcetera; all of them of the class of +delightful compositions of which any one with a little healthy +taste could point out a selection among the better class works +contained in any volume of music and say, "These are what you +ought NOT to play, seeing that anything worse, less tasteful, and +more silly has never yet been included in any collection of +music,"--but which (probably for that very reason) are to be +found on the piano of every Russian lady. True, we also possessed +an unfortunate volume which contained Beethoven's "Sonate +Pathetique" and the C minor Sonata (a volume lamed for life by +the ladies--more especially by Lubotshka, who used to discourse +music from it in memory of Mamma), as well as certain other good +pieces which her teacher in Moscow had given her; but among that +collection there were likewise compositions of the teacher's own, +in the shape of clumsy marches and galops--and these too +Lubotshka used to play! Katenka and I cared nothing for serious +works, but preferred, above all things, "Le Fou" and "The +Nightingale"--the latter of which Katenka would play until her +fingers almost became invisible, and which I too was beginning +to execute with much vigour and some continuity. I had adopted the +gestures of the young man of whom I have spoken, and frequently +regretted that there were no strangers present to see me play. +Soon, however, I began to realise that Liszt and Kalkbrenner were +beyond me, and that I should never overtake Katenka. +Accordingly, imagining that classical music was easier (as well +as, partly, for the sake of originality), I suddenly came to the +conclusion that I loved abstruse German music. I began to go into +raptures whenever Lubotshka played the "Sonate Pathetique," and +although (if the truth be told) that work had for years driven me +to the verge of distraction, I set myself to play Beethoven, and +to talk of him as "Beethoven." Yet through all this chopping and +changing and pretence (as I now conceive) there may have run in +me a certain vein of talent, since music sometimes affected me +even to tears, and things which particularly pleased me I could +strum on the piano afterwards (in a certain fashion) without the +score; so that, had any one taught me at that period to look upon +music as an end, a grace, in itself, and not merely as a means +for pleasing womenfolk with the velocity and pseudo-sentiment of +one's playing, I might possibly have become a passable musician. + +The reading of French novels (of which Woloda had brought +a large store with him from Moscow) was another of my amusements +that summer. At that period Monte Cristo and Taine's works had +just appeared, while I also revelled in stories by Sue, Dumas, +and Paul de Kock. Even their most unnatural personages and events +were for me as real as actuality, and not only was I incapable of +suspecting an author of lying, but, in my eyes, there existed no +author at all. That is to say, the various personages and events +of a book paraded themselves before me on the printed page as +personages and events that were alive and real; and although I +had never in my life met such characters as I there read about, I +never for a second doubted that I should one day do so. I +discovered in myself all the passions described in every novel, +as well as a likeness to all the characters--heroes and villains +impartially--who figured therein, just as a suspicious man finds +in himself the signs of every possible disease when reading a +book on medicine. I took pleasure both in the cunning designs, +the glowing sentiments, the tumultuous events, and the character- +drawing of these works. A good man was of the goodness, a bad man +of the badness, possible only to the imagination of early youth. +Likewise I found great pleasure in the fact that it was all +written in French, and that I could lay to heart the fine words +which the fine heroes spoke, and recall them for use some day +when engaged in some noble deed. What quantities of French +phrases I culled from those books for Kolpikoff's benefit if I +should ever meet him again, as well as for HERS, when at length I +should find her and reveal to her my love! For them both I +prepared speeches which should overcome them as soon as spoken! +Upon novels, too, I founded new ideals of the moral qualities +which I wished to attain. First of all, I wished to be NOBLE in +all my deeds and conduct (I use the French word noble instead of +the Russian word blagorodni for the reason that the former has a +different meaning to the latter--as the Germans well understood +when they adopted noble as nobel and differentiated it from +ehrlich); next, to be strenuous; and lastly, to be what I was +already inclined to be, namely, comme il faut. I even tried to +approximate my appearance and bearing to that of the heroes who +possessed these qualities. In particular I remember how in one of +the hundred or so novels which I read that summer there was a +very strenuous hero with heavy eyebrows, and that I so greatly +wished to resemble him (I felt that I did so already from a moral +point of view) that one day, when looking at my eyebrows in the +glass, I conceived the idea of clipping them, in order to make +them grow bushier. Unfortunately, after I had started to do so, I +happened to clip one spot rather shorter than the rest, and so +had to level down the rest to it-with the result that, to my +horror, I beheld myself eyebrow-less, and anything but +presentable. However, I comforted myself with the reflection that +my eyebrows would soon sprout again as bushy as my hero's, and +was only perplexed to think how I could explain the circumstance +to the household when they next perceived my eyebrow-less +condition. Accordingly I borrowed some gunpowder from Woloda, +rubbed it on my temples, and set it alight. The powder did not +fire properly, but I succeeded in singeing myself sufficiently to +avert all suspicion of my pranks. And, indeed, afterwards, when I +had forgotten all about my hero, my eyebrows grew again, and much +thicker than they had been before. + +XXXI + +"COMME IL FAUT" + +SEVERAL times in the course of this narrative I have hinted at an +idea corresponding to the above French heading, and now feel it +incumbent upon me to devote a whole chapter to that idea, which +was one of the most ruinous, lying notions which ever became +engrafted upon my life by my upbringing and social milieu. + +The human race may be divided into several categories--rich and +poor, good and bad, military and civilian, clever and stupid, and +so forth, and so forth. Yet each man has his own favourite, +fundamental system of division which he unconsciously uses to +class each new person with whom he meets. At the time of which I +am speaking, my own favourite, fundamental system of division in +this respect was into people "comme il faut" and people "comme il +ne faut pas"--the latter subdivided, again, into people merely not +"comme il faut" and the lower orders. People "comme il faut" I +respected, and looked upon as worthy to consort with me as my +equals; the second of the above categories I pretended merely to +despise, but in reality hated, and nourished towards them a kind +of feeling of offended personality; while the third category had +no existence at all, so far as I was concerned, since my contempt +for them was too complete. This "comme il faut"-ness of mine lay, +first and foremost, in proficiency in French, especially +conversational French. A person who spoke that language badly at +once aroused in me a feeling of dislike. "Why do you try to talk +as we do when you haven't a notion how to do it?" I would seem to +ask him with my most venomous and quizzing smile. The second +condition of "comme il faut"-ness was long nails that were well +kept and clean; the third, ability to bow, dance, and converse; +the fourth--and a very important one--indifference to everything, +and a constant air of refined, supercilious ennui. Moreover, +there were certain general signs which, I considered, enabled me +to tell, without actually speaking to a man, the class to which +he belonged. Chief among these signs (the others being the +fittings of his rooms, his gloves, his handwriting, his turn-out, +and so forth) were his feet. The relation of boots to trousers +was sufficient to determine, in my eyes, the social status of a +man. Heelless boots with angular toes, wedded to narrow, +unstrapped trouser-ends--these denoted the vulgarian. Boots with +narrow, round toes and heels, accompanied either by tight +trousers strapped under the instep and fitting close to the leg +or by wide trousers similarly strapped, but projecting in a peak +over the toe--these meant the man of mauvais genre; and so on, and +so on. + +It was a curious thing that I who lacked all ability to become +"comme il faut," should have assimilated the idea so completely +as I did. Possibly it was the fact that it had cost me such +enormous labour to acquire that brought about its strenuous +development in my mind. I hardly like to think how much of the +best and most valuable time of my first sixteen years of +existence I wasted upon its acquisition. Yet every one whom I +imitated--Woloda, Dubkoff, and the majority of my acquaintances-- +seemed to acquire it easily. I watched them with envy, and +silently toiled to become proficient in French, to bow gracefully +and without looking at the person whom I was saluting, to gain +dexterity in small-talk and dancing, to cultivate indifference +and ennui, and to keep my fingernails well trimmed (though I +frequently cut my finger-ends with the scissors in so doing). And +all the time I felt that so much remained to be done if I was +ever to attain my end! A room, a writing-table, an equipage I +still found it impossible to arrange "comme il faut," however +much I fought down my aversion to practical matters in my desire +to become proficient. Yet everything seemed to arrange itself +properly with other people, just as though things could never +have been otherwise! Once I remember asking Dubkoff, after much +zealous and careful labouring at my finger-nails (his own were +extraordinarily good), whether his nails had always been as now, +or whether he had done anything to make them so: to which he +replied that never within his recollection had he done anything +to them, and that he could not imagine a gentleman's nails +possibly being different. This answer incensed me greatly, for I +had not yet learnt that one of the chief conditions of "comme il +faut"-ness was to hold one's tongue about the labour by which it +had been acquired. "Comme il faut"-ness I looked upon as not only +a great merit, a splendid accomplishment, an embodiment of all +the perfection which must strive to attain, but as the one +indispensable condition without which there could never be +happiness, nor glory, nor any good whatsoever in this world. Even +the greatest artist or savant or benefactor of the human race +would at that time have won from me no respect if he had not also +been "comme il faut." A man possessed of "comme il faut"-ness +stood higher than, and beyond all possible equality with, such +people, and might well leave it to them to paint pictures, to +compose music, to write books, or to do good. Possibly he might +commend them for so doing (since why should not merit be +commended where-ever it be found?), but he could never stand ON A +LEVEL with them, seeing that he was "comme il faut" and they were +not--a quite final and sufficient reason. In fact, I actually +believe that, had we possessed a brother or a father or a mother +who had not been "comme il faut," I should have declared it to be +a great misfortune for us, and announced that between myself and +them there could never be anything in common. Yet neither waste +of the golden hours which I consumed in constantly endeavouring +to observe the many arduous, unattainable conditions of "comme il +faut"-ness (to the exclusion of any more serious pursuit), nor +dislike of and contempt for nine-tenths of the human race, nor +disregard of all the beauty that lay outside the narrow circle of +"comme il faut"-ness comprised the whole of the evil which the +idea wrought in me. The chief evil of all lay in the notion +acquired that a man need not strive to become a tchinovnik, +[Official.] a coachbuilder, a soldier, a savant, or anything +useful, so long only as he was "comme il faut "--that by attaining +the latter quality he had done all that was demanded of him, and +was even superior to most people. + +Usually, at a given period in youth, and after many errors and +excesses, every man recognises the necessity of his taking an +active part in social life, and chooses some branch of labour to +which to devote himself. Only with the "comme il faut" man does +this rarely happen. I have known, and know, very, very many +people--old, proud, self-satisfied, and opinionated--who to the +question (if it should ever present itself to them in their +world) "Who have you been, and what have you ever done?" would be +unable to reply otherwise than by saying, + +"Je fus un homme tres comme il faut," + +Such a fate was awaiting myself. + +XXXII + +YOUTH + +Despite the confusion of ideas raging in my head, I was at least +young, innocent, and free that summer--consequently almost happy. + +Sometimes I would rise quite early in the morning, for I slept on +the open verandah, and the bright, horizontal beams of the +morning sun would wake me up. Dressing myself quickly, I would +tuck a towel and a French novel under my arm, and go off to bathe +in the river in the shade of a birch tree which stood half a +verst from the house. Next, I would stretch myself on the grass +and read--raising my eyes from time to time to look at the surface +of the river where it showed blue in the shade of the trees, at +the ripples caused by the first morning breeze, at the yellowing +field of rye on the further bank, and at the bright-red sheen of +the sunlight as it struck lower and lower down the white trunks +of the birch-trees which, ranged in ranks one behind the other, +gradually receded into the remote distance of the home park. At +such moments I would feel joyously conscious of having within me +the same young, fresh force of life as nature was everywhere +exuding around me. When, however, the sky was overcast with grey +clouds of morning and I felt chilly after bathing, I would often +start to walk at random through the fields and woods, and +joyously trail my wet boots in the fresh dew. All the while my +head would be filled with vivid dreams concerning the heroes of +my last-read novel, and I would keep picturing to myself some +leader of an army or some statesman or marvellously strong man or +devoted lover or another, and looking round me in, a nervous +expectation that I should suddenly descry HER somewhere near me, +in a meadow or behind a tree. Yet, whenever these rambles led me +near peasants engaged at their work, all my ignoring of the +existence of the "common people" did not prevent me from +experiencing an involuntary, overpowering sensation of +awkwardness; so that I always tried to avoid their seeing me. +When the heat of the day had increased, it was not infrequently my +habit--if the ladies did not come out of doors for their morning +tea--to go rambling through the orchard and kitchen-garden, and to +pluck ripe fruit there. Indeed, this was an occupation which +furnished me with one of my greatest pleasures. Let any one go +into an orchard, and dive into the midst of a tall, thick, +sprouting raspberry-bed. Above will be seen the clear, glowing +sky, and, all around, the pale-green, prickly stems of raspberry- +trees where they grow mingled together in a tangle of profusion. +At one's feet springs the dark-green nettle, with its slender +crown of flowers, while the broad-leaved burdock, with its +bright-pink, prickly blossoms, overtops the raspberries (and even +one's head) with its luxuriant masses, until, with the nettle, it +almost meets the pendent, pale-green branches of the old apple- +trees where apples, round and lustrous as bone, but as yet +unripe, are mellowing in the heat of the sun. Below, again, are +seen young raspberry-shoots, twining themselves around the +partially withered, leafless parent plant, and stretching their +tendrils towards the sunlight, with green, needle-shaped blades +of grass and young, dew-coated pods peering through last year's +leaves, and growing juicily green in the perennial shade, as +though they care nothing for the bright sunshine which is playing +on the leaves of the apple-trees above them. In this density +there is always moisture--always a smell of confined, perpetual +shade, of cobwebs, fallen apples (turning black where they roll +on the mouldy sod), raspberries, and earwigs of the kind which +impel one to reach hastily for more fruit when one has +inadvertently swallowed a member of that insect tribe with the +last berry. At every step one's movements keep flushing the +sparrows which always make their home in these depths, and one +hears their fussy chirping and the beating of their tiny, +fluttering wings against the stalks, and catches the low buzzing +of a bumble bee somewhere, and the sound of the gardener's +footsteps (it is half-daft Akim) on the path as he hums his +eternal sing-song to himself. Then one mutters under one's +breath, "No! Neither he nor any one else shall find me here!" yet +still one goes on stripping juicy berries from their conical +white pilasters, and cramming them into one's mouth. At length, +one's legs soaked to the knees as one repeats, over and over +again, some rubbish which keeps running +in one's head, and one's hands and nether limbs (despite the +protection of one's wet trousers) thoroughly stung with the +nettles, one comes to the conclusion that the sun's rays are +beating too straight upon one's head for eating to be any longer +desirable, and, sinking down into the tangle of greenery, one +remains there--looking and listening, and continuing in +mechanical fashion to strip off one or two of the finer berries +and swallow them. + +At eleven o'clock--that is to say, when the ladies had taken +their morning tea and settled down to their occupations--I would +repair to the drawing-room. Near the first window, with its +unbleached linen blind lowered to exclude the sunshine, but +through the chink of which the sun kept throwing brilliant +circles of light which hurt the eye to look at them, there would +be standing a screen, with flies quietly parading the whiteness +of its covering. Behind it would be seated Mimi, shaking her head +in an irritable manner, and constantly shifting from spot to spot +to avoid the sunshine as at intervals it darted her from +somewhere and laid a streak of flame upon her hand or face. +Through the other three windows the sun would be throwing three +squares of light, crossed with the shadows of the window-frames, +and where one of these patches marked the unstained floor of the +room there would be lying, in accordance with invariable custom, +Milka, with her ears pricked as she watched the flies promenading +the lighted space. Seated on a settee, Katenka would be knitting +or reading aloud as from time to time she gave her white sleeves +(looking almost transparent in the sunshine) an impatient shake, +or tossed her head with a frown to drive away some fly which had +settled upon her thick auburn hair and was now buzzing in its +tangles. Lubotshka would either be walking up and down the room +(her hands clasped behind her) until the moment should arrive +when a movement would be made towards the garden, or playing some +piece of which every note had long been familiar to me. For my +own part, I would sit down somewhere, and listen to the music or +the reading until such time as I myself should have an +opportunity of performing on the piano. After luncheon I would +condescend to take the girls out riding (since to go for a mere +walk at that hour seemed to me unsuitable to my years and +position in the world), and these excursions of ours--in which I +often took my companions through unaccustomed spots and dells-- +were very pleasant. Indeed, on some of these occasions I grew +quite boyish, and the girls would praise my riding and daring, +and pretend that I was their protector. In the evening, if we had +no guests with us, tea (served in the dim verandah),would be +followed by a walk round the homestead with Papa, and then I +would stretch myself on my usual settee, and read and ponder as +of old, as I listened to Katenka or Lubotshka playing. At other +times, if I was alone in the drawing-room and Lubotshka was +performing some old-time air, I would find myself laying my book +down, and gazing through the open doorway on to the balcony at +the pendent, sinuous branches of the tall birch-trees where they +stood overshadowed by the coming night, and at the clear sky +where, if one looked at it intently enough, misty, yellowish +spots would appear suddenly, and then disappear again. Next, as I +listened to the sounds of the music wafted from the salon, and to +the creaking of gates and the voices of the peasant women when +the cattle returned to the village, I would suddenly bethink me +of Natalia Savishna and of Mamma and of Karl Ivanitch, and become +momentarily sad. But in those days my spirit was so full of life +and hope that such reminiscences only touched me in passing, and +soon fled away again. + +After supper and (sometimes) a night stroll with some one in the +garden (for I was afraid to walk down the dark avenues by +myself), I would repair to my solitary sleeping-place on the +verandah--a proceeding which, despite the countless mosquitos +which always devoured me, afforded me the greatest pleasure. If +the moon was full, I frequently spent whole nights sitting up on +my mattress, looking at the light and shade, listening to the +sounds or stillness, dreaming of one matter and another (but more +particularly of the poetic, voluptuous happiness which, in those +days, I believed was to prove the acme of my felicity) and +lamenting that until now it had only been given to me to IMAGINE +things. No sooner had every one dispersed, and I had seen lights +pass from the drawing-room to the upper chambers (whence female +voices would presently be heard, and the noise of windows opening +and shutting), than I would depart to the verandah, and walk up +and down there as I listened attentively to the sounds from the +slumbering mansion. To this day, whenever I feel any expectation +(no matter how small and baseless) of realising a fraction of +some happiness of which I may be dreaming, I somehow invariably +fail to picture to myself what the imagined happiness is going to +be like. + +At the least sound of bare footsteps, or of a cough, or of a +snore, or of the rattling of a window, or of the rustling of a +dress, I would leap from my mattress, and stand furtively gazing +and listening, thrown, without any visible cause, into extreme +agitation. But the lights would disappear from the upper rooms, +the sounds of footsteps and talking give place to snores, the +watchman begin his nightly tapping with his stick, the garden +grow brighter and more mysterious as the streaks of light +vanished from the windows, the last candle pass from the pantry +to the hall (throwing a glimmer into the dewy garden as it did +so), and the stooping figure of Foka (decked in a nightcap, and +carrying the candle) become visible to my eyes as he went to his +bed. Often I would find a great and fearful pleasure in stealing +over the grass, in the black shadow of the house, until I had +reached the hall window, where I would stand listening with bated +breath to the snoring of the boy, to Foka's gruntings (in the +belief that no one heard him), and to the sound of his senile +voice as he drawled out the evening prayers. At length even his +candle would be extinguished, and the window slammed down, so +that I would find myself utterly alone; whereupon, glancing +nervously from side to side, lest haply I should see the white +woman standing near a flower-bed or by my couch, I would run at +full speed back to the verandah. Then, and only then, I would lie +down with my face to the garden, and, covering myself over, so +far as possible, from the mosquitos and bats, fall to gazing in +front of me as I listened to the sounds of the night and dreamed +of love and happiness. + +At such times everything would take on for me a different +meaning. The look of the old birch trees, with the one side of +their curling branches showing bright against the moonlit sky, +and the other darkening the bushes and carriage-drive with their +black shadows; the calm, rich glitter of the pond, ever swelling +like a sound; the moonlit sparkle of the dewdrops on the flowers +in front of the verandah; the graceful shadows of those flowers +where they lay thrown upon the grey stonework; the cry of a quail +on the far side of the pond; the voice of some one walking on the +high road; the quiet, scarcely audible scrunching of two old +birch trees against one another; the humming of a mosquito at my +car under the coverlet; the fall of an apple as it caught against +a branch and rustled among the dry leaves; the leapings of frogs +as they approached almost to the verandah-steps arid sat with the +moon shining mysteriously on their green backs--all these things +took on for me a strange significance--a significance of +exceeding beauty and of infinite love. Before me would rise SHE, +with long black tresses and a high bust, but always mournful in +her fairness, with bare hands and voluptuous arms. She loved me, +and for one moment of her love I would sacrifice my whole life!-- +But the moon would go on rising higher and higher, and shining +brighter and brighter, in the heavens; the rich sparkle of the +pond would swell like a sound, and become ever more and more +brilliant, while the shadows would grow blacker and blacker, and +the sheen of the moon more and more transparent: until, as I +looked at and listened to all this, something would say to me +that SHE with the bare hands and voluptuous arms did not +represent ALL happiness, that love for her did not represent ALL +good; so that, the more I gazed at the full, high-riding moon, +the higher would true beauty and goodness appear to me to lie, +and the purer and purer they would seem--the nearer and nearer to +Him who is the source of all beauty and all goodness. And tears +of a sort of unsatisfied, yet tumultuous, joy would fill my eyes. + +Always, too, I was alone; yet always, too, it seemed to me that, +although great, mysterious Nature could draw the shining disc of +the moon to herself, and somehow hold in some high, indefinite +place the pale-blue sky, and be everywhere around me, and fill of +herself the infinity of space, while I was but a lowly worm, +already defiled with the poor, petty passions of humanity--always +it seemed to me that, nevertheless, both Nature and the moon and +I were one. + +XXXIII + +OUR NEIGHBOURS + +ON the first day after our arrival, I had been greatly astonished +that Papa should speak of our neighbours, the Epifanovs, as "nice +people," and still more so that he should go to call upon them. +The fact was that we had long been at law over some land with +this family. When a child, I had more than once heard Papa raging +over the litigation, abusing the Epifanovs, and warning people +(so I understood him) against them. Likewise, I had heard Jakoff +speak of them as "our enemies" and "black people" and could +remember Mamma requesting that their names should never be +mentioned in her presence, nor, indeed, in the house at all. + +From these data I, as a child, had arrived at the clear and assured +conviction that the Epifanovs were foemen of ours who would at +any time stab or strangle both Papa and his sons if they should +ever come across them, as well as that they were "black people", +in the literal sense of the term. Consequently, when, in the year +that Mamma died, I chanced to catch sight of Avdotia ("La Belle +Flamande") on the occasion of a visit which she paid to my +mother, I found it hard to believe that she did not come of a +family of negroes. All the same, I had the lowest possible +opinion of the family, and, for all that we saw much of them that +summer, continued to be strongly prejudiced against them. As a +matter of fact, their household only consisted of the mother (a +widow of fifty, but a very well-preserved, cheery old woman), a +beautiful daughter named Avdotia, and a son, Peter, who was a +stammerer, unmarried, and of very serious disposition. + +For the last twenty years before her husband's death, Madame +Epifanov had lived apart from him--sometimes in St. Petersburg, +where she had relatives, but more frequently at her village of +Mitishtchi, which stood some three versts from ours. Yet the +neighbourhood had taken to circulating such horrible tales +concerning her mode of life that Messalina was, by comparison, a +blameless child: which was why my mother had requested her name +never to be mentioned. As a matter of fact, not one-tenth part of +the most cruel of all gossip--the gossip of country-houses--is +worthy of credence; and although, when I first made Madame's +acquaintance, she had living with her in the house a clerk named +Mitusha, who had been promoted from a serf, and who, curled, +pomaded, and dressed in a frockcoat of Circassian pattern, always +stood behind his mistress's chair at luncheon, while from time to +time she invited her guests to admire his handsome eyes and +mouth, there was nothing for gossip to take hold of. I believe, +too, that since the time--ten years earlier--when she had recalled +her dutiful son Peter from the service, she had wholly changed +her mode of living. It seems her property had never been a large +one--merely a hundred souls or so--[This refers, of course, to the +days of serfdom.]and that during her previous life of gaiety she +had spent a great deal. Consequently, when, some ten years ago, +those portions of the property which had been mortgaged and re- +mortgaged had been foreclosed upon and compulsorily sold by +auction, she had come to the conclusion that all these unpleasant +details of distress upon and valuation of her property had been +due not so much to failure to pay the interest as to the fact +that she was a woman: wherefore she had written to her son (then +serving with his regiment) to come and save his mother from her +embarrassments, and he, like a dutiful son--conceiving that his +first duty was to comfort his mother in her old age--had +straightway resigned his commission (for all that he had been +doing well in his profession, and was hoping soon to become +independent), and had come to join her in the country. + +Despite his plain face, uncouth demeanour, and fault of +stuttering, Peter was a man of unswerving principles and of the +most extraordinary good sense. Somehow--by small borrowings, +sundry strokes of business, petitions for grace, and promises to +repay--he contrived to carry on the property, and, making himself +overseer, donned his father's greatcoat (still preserved in a +drawer), dispensed with horses and carriages, discouraged guests +from calling at Mitishtchi, fashioned his own sleighs, increased +his arable land and curtailed that of the serfs, felled his own +timber, sold his produce in person, and saw to matters generally. +Indeed, he swore, and kept his oath, that, until all outstanding +debts were paid, he would never wear any clothes than his +father's greatcoat and a corduroy jacket which he had made for +himself, nor yet ride in aught but a country waggon, drawn by +peasants' horses. This stoical mode of life he sought to apply +also to his family, so far as the sympathetic respect which he +conceived to be his mother's due would allow of; so that, +although, in the drawing-room, he would show her only stuttering +servility, and fulfil all her wishes, and blame any one who did +not do precisely as she bid them, in his study or his office he +would overhaul the cook if she had served up so much as a duck +without his orders, or any one responsible for sending a serf +(even though at Madame's own bidding) to inquire after a +neighbour's health or for despatching the peasant girls into the +wood to gather wild raspberries instead of setting them to weed +the kitchen-garden. + +Within four years every debt had been repaid, and Peter had gone +to Moscow and returned thence in a new jacket and tarantass. [A +two-wheeled carriage.] Yet, despite this flourishing position of +affairs, he still preserved the stoical tendencies in which, to +tell the truth, he took a certain vague pride before his family +and strangers, since he would frequently say with a stutter: "Any +one who REALLY wishes to see me will be glad to see me even in my +dressing-gown, and to eat nothing but shtchi [Cabbage-soup.] and +kasha [Buckwheat gruel.] at my table." "That is what I eat +myself," he would add. In his every word and movement spoke pride +based upon a consciousness of having sacrificed himself for his +mother and redeemed the property, as well as contempt for any one +who had not done something of the same kind. + +The mother and daughter were altogether different characters from +Peter, as well as altogether different from one another. The +former was one of the most agreeable, uniformly good-tempered, +and cheerful women whom one could possibly meet. Anything +attractive and genuinely happy delighted her. Even the faculty of +being pleased with the sight of young people enjoying themselves +(it is only in the best-natured of elderly folk that one meets +with that TRAIT) she possessed to the full. On the other hand, +her daughter was of a grave turn of mind. Rather, she was of that +peculiarly careless, absent-minded, gratuitously distant bearing +which commonly distinguishes unmarried beauties. Whenever she +tried to be gay, her gaiety somehow seemed to be unnatural to +her, so that she always appeared to be laughing either at herself +or at the persons to whom she was speaking or at the world in +general--a thing which, possibly, she had no real intention of +doing. Often I asked myself in astonishment what she could mean +when she said something like, "Yes, I know how terribly good- +looking I am," or, "Of course every one is in love with me," and +so forth. Her mother was a person always busy, since she had a +passion for housekeeping, gardening, flowers, canaries, and +pretty trinkets. Her rooms and garden, it is true, were small and +poorly fitted-up, yet everything in them was so neat and +methodical, and bore such a general air of that gentle gaiety +which one hears expressed in a waltz or polka, that the word +"toy" by which guests often expressed their praise of it all +exactly suited her surroundings. She herself was a "toy"--being +petite, slender, fresh-coloured, small, and pretty-handed, and +invariably gay and well-dressed. The only fault in her was that a +slight over-prominence of the dark-blue veins on her little hands +rather marred the general effect of her appearance. On the other +hand, her daughter scarcely ever did anything at all. Not only +had she no love for trifling with flowers and trinkets, but she +neglected her personal exterior, and only troubled to dress +herself well when guests happened to call. Yet, on returning to +the room in society costume, she always looked extremely +handsome--save for that cold, uniform expression of eyes and +smile which is common to all beauties. In fact, her strictly +regular, beautiful face and symmetrical figure always seemed to +be saying to you, "Yes, you may look at me." + +At the same time, for all the mother's liveliness of disposition +and the daughter's air of indifference and abstraction, something +told one that the former was incapable of feeling affection for +anything that was not pretty and gay, but that Avdotia, on the +contrary, was one of those natures which, once they love, are +willing to sacrifice their whole life for the man they adore. + +XXXIV + +MY FATHER'S SECOND MARRIAGE + +MY father was forty-eight when he took as his second wife Avdotia +Vassilievna Epifanov. + +I suspect that when, that spring, he had departed for the country +with the girls, he had been in that communicatively happy, +sociable mood in which gamblers usually find themselves who have +retired from play after winning large stakes. He had felt that he +still had a fortune left to him which, so long as he did not +squander it on gaming, might be used for our advancement in life. +Moreover, it was springtime, he was unexpectedly well supplied +with ready money, he was alone, and he had nothing to do. As he +conversed with Jakoff on various matters, and remembered both the +interminable suit with the Epifanovs and Avdotia's beauty (it was +a long while since he had seen her), I can imagine him saying: +"How do you think we ought to act in this suit, Jakoff? My idea +is simply to let the cursed land go. Eh? What do you think about +it?" I can imagine, too, how, thus interrogated, Jakoff twirled +his fingers behind his back in a deprecatory sort of way, and +proceeded to argue that it all the same, Peter Alexandritch, we +are in the right." Nevertheless, I further conjecture, Papa +ordered the dogcart to be got ready, put on his fashionable +olive-coloured driving-coat, brushed up the remnants of his hair, +sprinkled his clothes with scent, and, greatly pleased to think +that he was acting a la seignior (as well as, even more, +revelling in the prospect of soon seeing a pretty woman), drove +off to visit his neighbours. + +I can imagine, too, that when the flustered housemaid ran to +inform Peter Vassilievitch that Monsieur Irtenieff himself had +called, Peter answered angrily, "Well, what has he come for?" +and, stepping softly about the house, first went into his study +to put on his old soiled jacket, and then sent down word to the +cook that on no account whatever--no, not even if she were +ordered to do so by the mistress herself--was she to add anything +to luncheon. + +Since, later, I often saw Papa with Peter, I can form a very good +idea of this first interview between them. I can imagine that, +despite Papa's proposal to end the suit in a peaceful manner, +Peter was morose and resentful at the thought of having +sacrificed his career to his mother, and at Papa having done +nothing of the kind--a by no means surprising circumstance, Peter +probably said to himself. Next, I can see Papa taking no notice +of this ill-humour, but cracking quips and jests, while Peter +gradually found himself forced to treat him as a humorist with +whom he felt offended one moment and inclined to be reconciled +the next. Indeed, with his instinct for making fun of everything, +Papa often used to address Peter as "Colonel;" and though I can +remember Peter once replying, with an unusually violent stutter +and his face scarlet with indignation, that he had never been a +c-c-colonel, but only a l-l-lieutenant, Papa called him "Colonel" +again before another five minutes were out. + +Lubotshka told me that, up to the time of Woloda's and my arrival +from Moscow, there had been daily meetings with the Epifanovs, +and that things had been very lively, since Papa, who had a +genius for arranging, everything with a touch of originality and +wit, as well as in a simple and refined manner, had devised +shooting and fishing parties and fireworks for the Epifanovs' +benefit. All these festivities--so said Lubotshka--would have +gone off splendidly but for the intolerable Peter, who had spoilt +everything by his puffing and stuttering. After our coming, +however, the Epifanovs only visited us twice, and we went once to +their house, while after St. Peter's Day (on which, it being +Papa's nameday, the Epifanovs called upon us in common with a +crowd of other guests) our relations with that family came +entirely to an end, and, in future, only Papa went to see them. + +During the brief period when I had opportunities of seeing Papa +and Dunetchka (as her mother called Avdotia) together, this is +what I remarked about them. Papa remained unceasingly in the same +buoyant mood as had so greatly struck me on the day after our +arrival. So gay and youthful and full of life and happy did he +seem that the beams of his felicity extended themselves to all +around him, and involuntarily communicated to them a similar +frame of mind. He never stirred from Avdotia's side so long as +she was in the room, but either kept on plying her with sugary- +sweet compliments which made me feel ashamed for him or, with his +gaze fixed upon her with an air at once passionate and +complacent, sat hitching his shoulder and coughing as from time +to time he smiled and whispered something in her ear. Yet +throughout he wore the same expression of raillery as was +peculiar to him even in the most serious matters. + +As a rule, Avdotia herself seemed to catch the infection of the +happiness which sparkled at this period in Papa's large blue +eyes; yet there were moments also when she would be seized with +such a fit of shyness that I, who knew the feeling well, was full +of sympathy and compassion as I regarded her embarrassment. At +moments of this kind she seemed to be afraid of every glance and +every movement--to be supposing that every one was looking at her, +every one thinking of no one but her, and that unfavourably. She +would glance timidly from one person to another, the colour +coming and going in her cheeks, and then begin to talk loudly and +defiantly, but, for the most part, nonsense; until presently, +realising this, and supposing that Papa and every one else had +heard her, she would blush more painfully than ever. Yet Papa +never noticed her nonsense, for he was too much taken up with +coughing and with gazing at her with his look of happy, +triumphant devotion. I noticed, too, that, although these fits of +shyness attacked Avdotia, without any visible cause, they not +infrequently ensued upon Papa's mention of one or another young +and beautiful woman. Frequent transitions from depression to that +strange, awkward gaiety of hers to which I have referred before. +the repetition of favourite words and turns of speech of Papa's; +the continuation of discussions with others which Papa had +already begun--all these things, if my father had not been the +principal actor in the matter and I had been a little older, +would have explained to me the relations subsisting between him +and Avdotia. At the time, however, I never surmised them--no, not +even when Papa received from her brother Peter a letter which so +upset him that not again until the end of August did he go to +call upon the Epifanovs'. Then, however, he began his visits once +more, and ended by informing us, on the day before Woloda and I +were to return to Moscow, that he was about to take Avdotia +Vassilievna Epifanov to be his wife. + +XXXV + +HOW WE RECEIVED THE NEWS + +Yet, even on the eve of the official announcement, every one had +learnt of the matter, and was discussing it. Mimi never left her +room that day, and wept copiously. Katenka kept her company, and +only came out for luncheon, with a grieved expression on her face +which was manifestly borrowed from her mother. Lubotshka, on the +contrary, was very cheerful, and told us after luncheon that she +knew of a splendid secret which she was going to tell no one. + +"There is nothing so splendid about your secret," said Woloda, +who did not in the least share her satisfaction. "If you were +capable of any serious thought at all, you would understand that +it is a very bad lookout for us." + +Lubotshka stared at him in amazement, and said no more. After the +meal was over, Woloda made a feint of taking me by the arm, and +then, fearing that this would seem too much like "affection," +nudged me gently by the elbow, and beckoned me towards the salon. + +"You know, I suppose, what the secret is of which Lubotshka was +speaking?" he said when he was sure that we were alone. It was +seldom that he and I spoke together in confidence: with the +result that, whenever it came about, we felt a kind of +awkwardness in one another's presence, and "boys began to jump +about" in our eyes, as Woloda expressed it. On the present +occasion, however, he answered the excitement in my eyes with a +grave, fixed look which said: "You need not be surprised, for we +are brothers, and we have to consider an important family +matter." I understood him, and he went on: + +"You know, I suppose, that Papa is going to marry Avdotia +Epifanov?" + +I nodded, for I had already heard so. "Well, it is not a good +thing," continued Woloda. + +"Why so?" + +"Why?" he repeated irritably. "Because it will be so pleasant, +won't it, to have this stuttering 'colonel' and all his family +for relations! Certainly she seems nice enough, as yet; but who +knows what she will turn out to be later? It won't matter much to +you or myself, but Lubotshka will soon be making her debut, and +it will hardly be nice for her to have such a 'belle mere' as +this--a woman who speaks French badly, and has no manners to +teach her." + +Although it seemed odd to hear Woloda criticising Papa's choice +so coolly, I felt that he was right. + +"Why is he marrying her?" I asked. + +"Oh, it is a hole-and-corner business, and God only knows why," +he answered. "All I know is that her brother, Peter, tried to +make conditions about the marriage, and that, although at first +Papa would not hear of them, he afterwards took some fancy or +knight-errantry or another into his head. But, as I say, it is a +hole-and-corner business. I am only just beginning to understand +my father "--the fact that Woloda called Papa "my father" instead +of "Papa" somehow hurt me--"and though I can see that he is kind +and clever, he is irresponsible and frivolous to a degree that-- +Well, the whole thing is astonishing. He cannot so much as look +upon a woman calmly. You yourself know how he falls in love with +every one that he meets. You know it, and so does Mimi." + +"What do you mean?" I said. + +"What I say. Not long ago I learnt that he used to be in love +with Mimi herself when he was a young man, and that he used to +send her poetry, and that there really was something between +them. Mimi is heart-sore about it to this day"--and Woloda burst +out laughing. + +"Impossible!" I cried in astonishment. + +"But the principal thing at this moment," went on Woloda, +becoming serious again, and relapsing into French, "is to think +how delighted all our relations will be with this marriage! Why, +she will probably have children!" + +Woloda's prudence and forethought struck me so forcibly that I +had no answer to make. Just at this moment Lubotshka approached +us. + +"So you know?" she said with a joyful face. + +"Yes," said Woloda. "Still, I am surprised at you, Lubotshka. You +are no longer a baby in long clothes. Why should you be so +pleased because Papa is going to marry a piece of trash?" + +At this Lubotshka's face fell, and she became serious. + +"Oh, Woloda!" she exclaimed. "Why 'a piece of trash' indeed? How +can you dare to speak of Avdotia like that? If Papa is going to +marry her she cannot be 'trash.'" + +"No, not trash, so to speak, but--" + +"No 'buts' at all!" interrupted Lubotshka, flaring up. "You have +never heard me call the girl whom you are in love with 'trash!' +How, then, can you speak so of Papa and a respectable woman? +Although you are my elder brother, I won't allow you to speak +like that! You ought not to!" + +"Mayn't I even express an opinion about--" + +"No, you mayn't!" repeated Lubotshka. "No one ought to criticise +such a father as ours. Mimi has the right to, but not you, +however much you may be the eldest brother." + +"Oh you don't understand anything," said Woloda contemptuously. +"Try and do so. How can it be a good thing that a 'Dunetchka' of +an Epifanov should take the place of our dead Mamma?" + +For a moment Lubotshka was silent. Then the tears suddenly came +into her eyes. + +"I knew that you were conceited, but I never thought that you +could be cruel," she said, and left us. + +"Pshaw!" said Woloda, pulling a serio-comic face and make- +believe, stupid eyes. "That's what comes of arguing with them." +Evidently he felt that he was at fault in having so far forgot +himself as to descend to discuss matters at all with Lubotshka. + +Next day the weather was bad, and neither Papa nor the ladies had +come down to morning tea when I entered the drawing-room. There +had been cold rain in the night, and remnants of the clouds from +which it had descended were still scudding across the sky, with +the sun's luminous disc (not yet risen to any great height) +showing faintly through them. It was a windy, damp, grey morning. +The door into the garden was standing open, and pools left by the +night's rain were drying on the damp-blackened flags of the +terrace. The open door was swinging on its iron hinges in the +wind, and all the paths looked wet and muddy. The old birch trees +with their naked white branches, the bushes, the turf, the +nettles, the currant-trees, the elders with the pale side of +their leaves turned upwards--all were dashing themselves about, +and looking as though they were trying to wrench themselves free +from their roots. From the avenue of lime-trees showers of round, +yellow leaves were flying through the air in tossing, eddying +circles, and strewing the wet road and soaked aftermath of the +hayfield with a clammy carpet. At the moment, my thoughts were +wholly taken up with my father's approaching marriage and with +the point of view from which Woloda regarded it. The future +seemed to me to bode no good for any of us. I felt distressed to +think that a woman who was not only a stranger but young should +be going to associate with us in so many relations of life, +without having any right to do so--nay, that this young woman was +going to usurp the place of our dead mother. I felt depressed, +and kept thinking more and more that my father was to blame in +the matter. Presently I heard his voice and Woloda's speaking +together in the pantry, and, not wishing to meet Papa just then, +had just left the room when I was pursued by Lubotshka, who said +that Papa wanted to see me. + +He was standing in the drawing-room, with his hand resting on the +piano, and was gazing in my direction with an air at once grave +and impatient. His face no longer wore the youthful, gay +expression which had struck me for so long, but, on the contrary, +looked sad. Woloda was walking about the room with a pipe in his +hand. I approached my father, and bade him good morning. + +"Well, my children," he said firmly, with a lift of his head and +in the peculiarly hurried manner of one who wishes to announce +something obviously unwelcome, but no longer admitting of +reconsideration, "you know, I suppose, that I am going to marry +Avdotia Epifanov." He paused a moment. "Hitherto I had had no +desire for any one to succeed your mother, but"--and again he +paused--"it-it is evidently my fate. Dunetchka is an excellent, +kind girl, and no longer in her first youth. I hope, therefore, +my children, that you will like her, and she, I know, will be +sincerely fond of you, for she is a good woman. And now," he went +on, addressing himself more particularly to Woloda and myself, +and having the appearance of speaking hurriedly in order to +prevent us from interrupting him, "it is time for you to depart, +while I myself am going to stay here until the New Year, and then +to follow you to Moscow with"--again he hesitated a moment--"my +wife and Lubotshka." It hurt me to see my father standing as +though abashed and at fault before us, so I moved a little nearer +him, but Woloda only went on walking about the room with his head +down, and smoking. + +"So, my children, that is what your old father has planned to +do," concluded Papa--reddening, coughing, and offering Woloda and +myself his hands. Tears were in his eyes as he said this, and I +noticed, too, that the hand which he was holding out to Woloda +(who at that moment chanced to be at the other end of the room) +was shaking slightly. The sight of that shaking hand gave me an +unpleasant shock, for I remembered that Papa had served in 1812, +and had been, as every one knew, a brave officer. Seizing the +great veiny hand, I covered it with kisses, and he squeezed mine +hard in return. Then, with a sob amid his tears, he suddenly +threw his arms around Lubotshka's dark head, and kissed her again +and again on the eyes. Woloda pretended that he had dropped his +pipe, and, bending down, wiped his eyes furtively with the back +of his hand. Then, endeavouring to escape notice, he left the +room. + +XXXVI + +THE UNIVERSITY + +THE wedding was to take place in two weeks' time, but, as our +lectures had begun already, Woloda and myself were forced to +return to Moscow at the beginning of September. The Nechludoffs +had also returned from the country, and Dimitri (with whom, on +parting, I had made an agreement that we should correspond +frequently with the result, of course, that we had never once +written to one another) came to see us immediately after our +arrival, and arranged to escort me to my first lecture on the +morrow. + +It was a beautiful sunny day. No sooner had I entered the +auditorium than I felt my personality entirely disappear amid the +swarm of light-hearted youths who were seething tumultuously +through every doorway and corridor under the influence of the +sunlight pouring through the great windows. I found the sense of +being a member of this huge community very pleasing, yet there +were few among the throng whom I knew, and that only on terms of +a nod and a "How do you do, Irtenieff?" + +All around me men were shaking hands and chatting together--from +every side came expressions of friendship, laughter, jests, and +badinage. Everywhere I could feel the tie which bound this +youthful society in one, and everywhere, too, I could feel that +it left me out. Yet this impression lasted for a moment only, and +was succeeded, together with the vexation which it had caused, by +the idea that it was best that I should not belong to that +society, but keep to my own circle of gentlemen; wherefore I +proceeded to seat myself upon the third bench, with, as neigh~ +hours, Count B., Baron Z., the Prince R., Iwin, and some other +young men of the same class with none of whom, however, was +acquainted save with Iwin and Count B. Yet the look which these +young gentlemen threw at me at once made me feel that I was not +of their set, and I turned to observe what was going on around +me. Semenoff, with grey, matted hair, white teeth, and tunic +flying open, was seated a little distance off, and leaning +forward on his elbows as he nibbled a pen, while the gymnasium +student who had come out first in the examinations had +established himself on the front bench, and, with a black stock +coming half-way up his cheek, was toying with the silver watch- +chain which adorned his satin waistcoat. On a bench in a raised +part of the hall I could descry Ikonin (evidently he had +contrived to enter the University somehow!), and hear him fussily +proclaiming, in all the glory of blue piped trousers which +completely hid his boots, that he was now seated on Parnassus. +Ilinka--who had surprised me by giving me a bow not only cold, +but supercilious, as though to remind me that here we were all +equals--was just in front of me, with his legs resting in free and +easy style on another bench (a hit, somehow I thought, at +myself), and conversing with a student as he threw occasional +glances in my direction. Iwin's set by my side were talking in +French, yet every word which I overheard of their conversation +seemed to me both stupid and incorrect ("Ce n'est pas francais," +I thought to myself), while all the attitudes, utterances, and +doings of Semenoff, Ilinka, and the rest struck me as uniformly +coarse, ungentlemanly, and "comme il ne faut pas." + +Thus, attached to no particular set, I felt isolated and unable +to make friends, and so grew resentful. One of the students on +the bench in front of me kept biting his nails, which were raw to +the quick already, and this so disgusted me that I edged away +from him. In short, I remember finding my first day a most +depressing affair. + +When the professor entered, and there was a general stir and a +cessation of chatter, I remember throwing a scornful glance at +him, as also that he began his discourse with a sentence which I +thought devoid of meaning. I had expected the lecture to be, from +first to last, so clever that not a word ought to be taken from +or added to it. Disappointed in this, I at once proceeded to draw +beneath the heading "First Lecture" with which I had adorned my +beautifully-bound notebook no less than eighteen faces in +profile, joined together in a sort of chaplet, and only +occasionally moved my hand along the page in order to give the +professor (who, I felt sure, must be greatly interested in me) +the impression that I was writing something. In fact, at this +very first lecture I came to the decision which I maintained to +the end of my course, namely, that it was unnecessary, and even +stupid, to take down every word said by every professor. + +At subsequent lectures, however, I did not feel my isolation so +strongly, since I made several acquaintances and got into the way +of shaking hands and entering into conversation. Yet for some +reason or another no real intimacy ever sprang up between us, and +I often found myself depressed and only feigning cheerfulness. +With the set which comprised Iwin and "the aristocrats," as they +were generally known, I could not make any headway at all, for, +as I now remember, I was always shy and churlish to them, and +nodded to them only when they nodded to me; so that they had +little inducement to desire my acquaintance. With most of the +other students, however, this arose from quite a different cause. +As soon as ever I discerned friendliness on the part of a +comrade, I at once gave him to understand that I went to luncheon +with Prince Ivan Ivanovitch and kept my own drozhki. All this I +said merely to show myself in the most favourable light in his +eyes, and to induce him to like me all the more; yet almost +invariably the only result of my communicating to him the +intelligence concerning the drozhki and my relationship to Prince +Ivan Ivanovitch was that, to my astonishment, he at once adopted +a cold and haughty bearing towards me. + +Among us we had a Crown student named Operoff--a very modest, +industrious, and clever young fellow, who always offered one his +hand like a slab of wood (that is to say, without closing his +fingers or making the slightest movement with them); with the +result that his comrades often did the same to him in jest, and +called it the "deal board" way of shaking hands. He and I nearly +always sat next to one another, and discussed matters generally. +In particular he pleased me with the freedom with which he would +criticise the professors as he pointed out to me with great +clearness and acumen the merits or demerits of their respective +ways of teaching and made occasional fun of them. Such remarks I +found exceedingly striking and diverting when uttered in his +quiet, mincing voice. Nevertheless he never let a lecture pass +without taking careful notes of it in his fine handwriting, and +eventually we decided to join forces, and to do our preparation +together. Things had progressed to the point of his always +looking pleased when I took my usual seat beside him when, +unfortunately, I one day found it necessary to inform him that, +before her death, my mother had besought my father never to allow +us to enter for a government scholarship, as well as that I +myself considered Crown students, no matter how clever, to be- +"well, they are not GENTLEMEN," I concluded, though beginning to +flounder a little and grow red. At the moment Operoff said +nothing, but at subsequent lectures he ceased to greet me or to +offer me his board-like hand, and never attempted to talk to me, +but, as soon as ever I sat down, he would lean his head upon his +arm, and purport to be absorbed in his notebooks. I was surprised +at this sudden coolness, but looked upon it as infra dig, "pour +un jeune homme de bonne maison" to curry favour with a mere Crown +student of an Operoff, and so left him severely alone--though I +confess that his aloofness hurt my feelings. On one occasion I +arrived before him, and, since the lecture was to be delivered by +a popular professor whom students came to hear who did not +usually attend such functions, I found almost every seat +occupied. Accordingly I secured Operoff's place for myself by +spreading my notebooks on the desk before it; after which I left +the room again for a moment. When I returned I perceived that my +paraphernalia had been relegated to the bench behind, and the +place taken by Operoff himself. I remarked to him that I had +already secured it by placing my notebooks there. + +"I know nothing about that," he replied sharply, yet without +looking up at me. + +"I tell you I placed my notebooks there," I repeated, purposely +trying to bluster, in the hope of intimidating him. "Every one +saw me do it," I added, including the students near me in my +glance. Several of them looked at me with curiosity, yet none of +them spoke. + +"Seats cannot be booked here," said Operoff. "Whoever first sits +down in a place keeps it," and, settling himself angrily where he +was, he flashed at me a glance of defiance. + +"Well, that only means that you are a cad," I said. + +I have an idea that he murmured something about my being "a +stupid young idiot," but I decided not to hear it. What would be +the use, I asked myself, of my hearing it? That we should brawl +like a couple of manants over less than nothing? (I was very fond +of the word manants, and often used it for meeting awkward +junctures.) Perhaps I should have said something more had not, at +that moment, a door slammed and the professor (dressed in a blue +frockcoat, and shuffling his feet as he walked) ascended the +rostrum. + +Nevertheless, when the examination was about to come on, and I +had need of some one's notebooks, Operoff remembered his promise +to lend me his, and we did our preparation together. + +XXXVII + +AFFAIRS OF THE HEART + +Affaires du coeur exercised me greatly that winter. In fact, I +fell in love three times. The first time, I became passionately +enamoured of a buxom lady whom I used to see riding at Freitag's +riding-school; with the result that every day when she was taking +a lesson there (that is to say, every Tuesday and Friday) I used +to go to gaze at her, but always in such a state of trepidation +lest I should be seen that I stood a long way off, and bolted +directly I thought her likely to approach the spot where I was +standing. Likewise, I used to turn round so precipitately whenever +she appeared to be glancing in my direction that I never saw her +face well, and to this day do not know whether she was really +beautiful or not. + +Dubkoff, who was acquainted with her, surprised me one day in the +riding-school, where I was lurking concealed behind the lady's +grooms and the fur wraps which they were holding, and, having +heard from Dimitri of my infatuation, frightened me so terribly +by proposing to introduce me to the Amazon that I fled +incontinently from the school, and was prevented by the mere +thought that possibly he had told her about me from ever entering +the place again, or even from hiding behind her grooms, lest I +should encounter her. + +Whenever I fell in love with ladies whom I did not know, and +especially married women, I experienced a shyness a thousand +times greater than I had ever felt with Sonetchka. I dreaded +beyond measure that my divinity should learn of my passion, or +even of my existence, since I felt sure that, once she had done +so, she would be so terribly offended that I should never be +forgiven for my presumption. And indeed, if the Amazon referred +to above had ever come to know how I used to stand behind the +grooms and dream of seizing her and carrying her off to some +country spot--if she had ever come to know how I should have lived +with her there, and how I should have treated her, it is probable +that she would have had very good cause for indignation! But I +always felt that, once I got to know her, she would straightway +divine these thoughts, and consider herself insulted by my +acquaintance. + +As my second affaire du coeur, I, (for the third time) fell in +love with Sonetchka when I saw her at her sister's. My second +passion for her had long since come to an end, but I became +enamoured of her this third time through Lubotshka sending me a +copy-book in which Sonetchka had copied some extracts from +Lermontoff's The Demon, with certain of the more subtly amorous +passages underlined in red ink and marked with pressed flowers. +Remembering how Woloda had been wont to kiss his inamorata's +purse last year, I essayed to do the same thing now; and really, +when alone in my room in the evenings and engaged in dreaming as +I looked at a flower or occasionally pressed it to my lips, I +would feel a certain pleasantly lachrymose mood steal over me, +and remain genuinely in love (or suppose myself to be so) for at +least several days. + +Finally, my third affaire du coeur that winter was connected with +the lady with whom Woloda was in love, and who used occasionally +to visit at our house. Yet, in this damsel, as I now remember, +there was not a single beautiful feature to be found--or, at all +events, none of those which usually pleased me. She was the +daughter of a well-known Moscow lady of light and leading, and, +petite and slender, wore long flaxen curls after the English +fashion, and could boast of a transparent profile. Every one said +that she was even cleverer and more learned than her mother, but +I was never in a position to judge of that, since, overcome with +craven bashfulness at the mere thought of her intellect and +accomplishments, I never spoke to her alone but once, and then +with unaccountable trepidation. Woloda's enthusiasm, however (for +the presence of an audience never prevented him from giving vent +to his rapture), communicated itself to me so strongly that I +also became enamoured of the lady. Yet, conscious that he would +not be pleased to know that two brothers were in love with the +same girl, I never told him of my condition. On the contrary, I +took special delight in the thought that our mutual love for her +was so pure that, though its object was, in both cases, the same +charming being, we remained friends and ready, if ever the +occasion should arise, to sacrifice ourselves for one another. +Yet I have an idea that, as regards self-sacrifice, he did not +quite share my views, for he was so passionately in love with the +lady that once he was for giving a member of the diplomatic +corps, who was said to be going to marry her, a slap in the face +and a challenge to a duel; but, for my part, I would gladly have +sacrificed my feelings for his sake, seeing that the fact that +the only remark I had ever addressed to her had been on the +subject of the dignity of classical music, and that my passion, +for all my efforts to keep it alive, expired the following week, +would have rendered it the more easy for me to do so. + +XXXVIII + +THE WORLD + +As regards those worldly delights to which I had intended, on +entering the University, to surrender myself in imitation of my +brother, I underwent a complete disillusionment that winter. +Woloda danced a great deal, and Papa also went to balls with his +young wife, but I appeared to be thought either too young or +unfitted for such delights, and no one invited me to the houses +where balls were being given. Yet, in spite of my vow of +frankness with Dimitri, I never told him (nor any one else) how +much I should have liked to go to those dances, and how I felt +hurt at being forgotten and (apparently) taken for the +philosopher that I pretended to be. + +Nevertheless, a reception was to be given that winter at the +Princess Kornakoff's, and to it she sent us personal invitations-- +to myself among the rest! Consequently, I was to attend my first +ball. Before starting, Woloda came into my room to see how I was +dressing myself--an act on his part which greatly surprised me and +took me aback. In my opinion (it must be understood) solicitude +about one's dress was a shameful thing, and should be kept under, +but he seemed to think it a thing so natural and necessary that +he said outright that he was afraid I should be put out of +countenance on that score. Accordingly, he bid me don my patent +leather boots, and was horrified to find that I wanted to put on +gloves of peau de chamois. Next, he adjusted my watch-chain in a +particular manner, and carried me off to a hairdresser's near the +Kuznetski Bridge to have my locks coiffured. That done, he +withdrew to a little distance and surveyed me. + +"Yes, he looks right enough now" said he to the hairdresser. +"Only--couldn't you smooth those tufts of his in front a little?" +Yet, for all that Monsieur Charles treated my forelocks with one +essence and another, they persisted in rising up again when ever +I put on my hat. In fact, my curled and tonsured figure seemed to +me to look far worse than it had done before. My only hope of +salvation lay in an affectation of untidiness. Only in that guise +would my exterior resemble anything at all. Woloda, apparently, +was of the same opinion, for he begged me to undo the curls, and +when I had done so and still looked unpresentable, he ceased to +regard me at all, but throughout the drive to the Kornakoffs +remained silent and depressed. + +Nevertheless, I entered the Kornakoffs' mansion boldly enough, and +it was only when the Princess had invited me to dance, and I, for +some reason or another (though I had driven there with no other +thought in my head than to dance well), had replied that I never +indulged in that pastime, that I began to blush, and, left +solitary among a crowd of strangers, became plunged in my usual +insuperable and ever-growing shyness. In fact, I remained silent +on that spot almost the whole evening! + +Nevertheless, while a waltz was in progress, one of the young +princesses came to me and asked me, with the sort of official +kindness common to all her family, why I was not dancing. I can +remember blushing hotly at the question, but at the same time +feeling--for all my efforts to prevent it--a self-satisfied smile +steal over my face as I began talking, in the most inflated and +long-winded French, such rubbish as even now, after dozens of +years, it shames me to recall. It must have been the effect of +the music, which, while exciting my nervous sensibility, drowned +(as I supposed) the less intelligible portion of my utterances. +Anyhow, I went on speaking of the exalted company present, and of +the futility of men and women, until I had got myself into such a +tangle that I was forced to stop short in the middle of a word of +a sentence which I found myself powerless to conclude. + +Even the worldly-minded young Princess was shocked by my conduct, +and gazed at me in reproach; whereat I burst out laughing. At +this critical moment, Woloda, who had remarked that I was +conversing with great animation, and probably was curious to know +what excuses I was making for not dancing, approached us with +Dubkoff. Seeing, however, my smiling face and the Princess's +frightened mien, as well as overhearing the appalling rubbish +with which I concluded my speech, he turned red in the face, and +wheeled round again. The Princess also rose and left me. I +continued to smile, but in such a state of agony from the +consciousness of my stupidity that I felt ready to sink into the +floor. Likewise I felt that, come what might, I must move about +and say something, in order to effect a change in my position. +Accordingly I approached Dubkoff, and asked him if he had danced +many waltzes with her that night. This I feigned to say in a gay +and jesting manner, yet in reality I was imploring help of the +very Dubkoff to whom I had cried "Hold your tongue!" on the +night of the matriculation dinner. By way of answer, he made as +though he had not heard me, and turned away. Next, I approached +Woloda, and said with an effort and in a similar tone of assumed +gaiety: "Hullo, Woloda! Are you played out yet?" He merely looked +at me as much as to say, "You wouldn't speak to me like that if +we were alone," and left me without a word, in the evident fear +that I might continue to attach myself to his person. + +"My God! Even my own brother deserts me!" I thought to myself. + +Yet somehow I had not the courage to depart, but remained +standing where I was until the very end of the evening. At +length, when every one was leaving the room and crowding into the +hall, and a footman slipped my greatcoat on to my shoulders in +such a way as to tilt up my cap, I gave a dreary, half-lachrymose +smile, and remarked to no one in particular: "Comme c'est +gracieux!" + +XXXIX + +THE STUDENTS' FEAST + +NOTWITHSTANDING that, as yet, Dimitri's influence had kept me +from indulging in those customary students' festivities known as +kutezhi or "wines," that winter saw me participate in such a +function, and carry away with me a not over-pleasant impression +of it. This is how it came about. + +At a lecture soon after the New Year, Baron Z.--a tall, light- +haired young fellow of very serious demeanour and regular +features--invited us all to spend a sociable evening with him. By +"us all", I mean all the men more or less "comme il faut", of our +course, and exclusive of Grap, Semenoff, Operoff, and commoners +of that sort. Woloda smiled contemptuously when he heard that I +was going to a "wine" of first course men, but I looked to derive +great and unusual pleasure from this, to me, novel method of +passing the time. Accordingly, punctually at the appointed hour +of eight I presented myself at the Baron's. + +Our host, in an open tunic and white waistcoat, received his +guests in the brilliantly lighted salon and drawing-room of the +small mansion where his parents lived--they having given up their +reception rooms to him for the evening for purposes of this +party. In the corridor could be seen the heads and skirts of +inquisitive domestics, while in the dining-room I caught a +glimpse of a dress which I imagined to belong to the Baroness +herself. The guests numbered a score, and were all of them +students except Herr Frost (in attendance upon Iwin) and a tall, +red-faced gentleman who was superintending the feast and who was +introduced to every one as a relative of the Baron's and a former +student of the University of Dorpat. At first, the excessive +brilliancy and formal appointments of the reception-rooms had +such a chilling effect upon this youthful company that every one +involuntarily hugged the walls, except a few bolder spirits and +the ex-Dorpat student, who, with his waistcoat already +unbuttoned, seemed to be in every room, and in every corner of +every room, at once, and filled the whole place with his +resonant, agreeable, never-ceasing tenor voice. The remainder of +the guests preferred either to remain silent or to talk in +discreet tones of professors, faculties, examinations, and other +serious and interesting matters. Yet every one, without +exception, kept watching the door of the dining-room, and, while +trying to conceal the fact, wearing an expression which said: +"Come! It is time to begin." I too felt that it was time to +begin, and awaited the beginning with pleasurable impatience. + +After footmen had handed round tea among the guests, the Dorpat +student asked Frost in Russian: + +"Can you make punch, Frost?" + +"Oh ja!" replied Frost with a joyful flourish of his heels, and +the other went on: + +"Then do you set about it" (they addressed each other in the +second person singular, as former comrades at Dorpat). Frost +accordingly departed to the dining-room, with great strides of +his bowed, muscular legs, and, after some walking backwards and +forwards, deposited upon the drawing-room table a large +punchbowl, accompanied by a ten-pound sugar loaf supported on +three students' swords placed crosswise. Meanwhile, the Baron had +been going round among his guests as they sat regarding the +punch-bowl, and addressing them, with a face of immutable +gravity, in the formula: "I beg of you all to drink of this +loving-cup in student fashion, that there may be good-fellowship +among the members of our course. Unbutton your waistcoats, or +take them off altogether, as you please." Already the Dorpat +student had divested himself of his tunic and rolled up his +white shirt-sleeves above his elbows, and now, planting his +feet firmly apart, he proceeded to set fire to the rum in the +punch-bowl. + +"Gentlemen, put out the candles!" he cried with a sudden shout so +loud and insistent that we seemed all of us to be shouting at +once. However, we still went on silently regarding the punch-bowl +and the white shirt of the Dorpat student, with a feeling that a +moment of great solemnity was approaching. + +"Put out the lights, Frost, I tell you!" the Dorpat student +shouted again. Evidently the punch was now sufficiently burnt. +Accordingly every one helped to extinguish the candles, until the +room was in total darkness save for a spot where the white shirts +and hands of the three students supporting the sugarloaf on their +crossed swords were lit up by the lurid flames from the bowl. Yet +the Dorpat student's tenor voice was not the only one to be +heard, for in different quarters of the room resounded chattering +and laughter. Many had taken off their tunics (especially +students whose garments were of fine cloth and perfectly new), +and I now did the same, with a consciousness that "IT" was +"beginning." There had been no great festivity as yet, but I felt +assured that things would go splendidly when once we had begun +drinking tumblers of the potion that was now in course of +preparation. + +At length, the punch was ready, and the Dorpat student, with much +bespattering of the table as he did so, ladled the liquor into +tumblers, and cried: "Now, gentlemen, please!" When we had each +of us taken a sticky tumbler of the stuff into our hands, the +Dorpat student and Frost sang a German song in which the word +"Hoch!" kept occurring again and again, while we joined, in +haphazard fashion, in the chorus. Next we clinked glasses +together, shouted something in praise of punch, crossed hands, +and took our first drink of the sweet, strong mixture. After that +there was no further waiting; the "wine" was in full swing. The +first glassful consumed, a second was poured out. Yet, for all +that I began to feel a throbbing in my temples, and that the +flames seemed to be turning purple, and that every one around me +was laughing and shouting, things seemed lacking in real gaiety, +and I somehow felt that, as a matter of fact, we were all of us +finding the affair rather dull, and only PRETENDING to be +enjoying it. The Dorpat student may have been an exception, for +he continued to grow more and more red in the face and more and +more ubiquitous as he filled up empty glasses and stained the +table with fresh spots of the sweet, sticky stuff. The precise +sequence of events I cannot remember, but I can recall feeling +strongly attracted towards Frost and the Dorpat student that +evening, learning their German song by heart, and kissing them +each on their sticky-sweet lips; also that that same evening I +conceived a violent hatred against the Dorpat student, and was +for pushing him from his chair, but thought better of it; also +that, besides feeling the same spirit of independence towards the +rest of the company as I had felt on the night of the +matriculation dinner, my head ached and swam so badly that I +thought each moment would be my last; also that, for some reason +or another, we all of us sat down on the floor and imitated the +movements of rowers in a boat as we sang in chorus, "Down our +mother stream the Volga;" also that I conceived this procedure on +our part to be uncalled for; also that, as I lay prone upon the +floor, I crossed my legs and began wriggling about like a +tsigane; [Gipsy dancer.] also that I ricked some one's neck, and +came to the, conclusion that I should never have done such a +thing if I had not been drunk; also that we had some supper and +another kind of liquor, and that I then went to the door to get +some fresh air; also that my head seemed suddenly to grow chill, +and that I noticed, as I drove away, that the scat of the vehicle +was so sharply aslant and slippery that for me to retain my +position behind Kuzma was impossible; also that he seemed to have +turned all flabby, and to be waving about like a dish clout. But +what I remember best is that throughout the whole of that evening +I never ceased to feel that I was acting with excessive stupidity +in pretending to be enjoying myself, to like drinking a great +deal, and to be in no way drunk, as well as that every one else +present was acting with equal stupidity in pretending those same +things. All the time I had a feeling that each one of my +companions was finding the festivities as distasteful as I was +myself; but, in the belief that he was the only one doing so, +felt himself bound to pretend that he was very merry, in order +not to mar the general hilarity. Also, strange to state, I felt +that I ought to keep up this pretence for the sole reason that +into a punch-bowl there had been poured three bottles of +champagne at nine roubles the bottle and ten bottles of rum at +four--making seventy roubles in all, exclusive of the supper. So +convinced of my folly did I feel that, when, at next day's +lecture, those of my comrades who had been at Baron Z.'s party +seemed not only in no way ashamed to remember what they had done, +but even talked about it so that other students might hear of +their doings, I felt greatly astonished. They all declared that +it had been a splendid "wine," that Dorpat students were just the +fellows for that kind of thing, and that there had been consumed +at it no less than forty bottles of rum among twenty guests, some +of whom had dropped senseless under the table! That they should +care to talk about such things seemed strange enough, but that +they should care to lie about them seemed absolutely +unintelligible. + +XL + +MY FRIENDSHIP WITH THE NECHLUDOFFS + +That winter, too, I saw a great deal both of Dimitri who often +looked us up, and of his family, with whom I was beginning to +stand on intimate terms. + +The Nechludoffs (that is to say, mother, aunt, and daughter) +always spent their evenings at home, at which time the Princess +liked young men to visit her--at all events young men of the kind +whom she described as able to spend an evening without playing +cards or dancing. Yet such young fellows must have been few and +far between, for, although I went to the Nechludoffs almost every +evening, I seldom found other guests present. Thus, I came to know +the members of this family and their several dispositions well +enough to be able to form clear ideas as to their mutual +relations, and to be quite at home amid the rooms and furniture +of their house. Indeed, so long as no other guests were present, +I felt entirely at my ease. True, at first I used to feel a +little uncomfortable when left alone in the room with Varenika, +for I could not rid myself of the idea that, though far from +pretty, she wished me to fall in love with her; but in time this +nervousness of mine began to lessen, since she always looked so +natural, and talked to me so exactly as though she were +conversing with her brother or Lubov Sergievna, that I came to +look upon her simply as a person to whom it was in no way +dangerous or wrong to show that I took pleasure in her company. +Throughout the whole of our acquaintance she appeared to me +merely a plain, though not positively ugly, girl, concerning whom +one would never ask oneself the question, + +"Am I, or am I not, in love with her?" Sometimes I would talk to +her direct, but more often I did so through Dimitri or Lubov +Sergievna; and it was the latter method which afforded me the +most pleasure. I derived considerable gratification from +discoursing when she was there, from hearing her sing, and, in +general, from knowing that she was in the same room as myself; +but it was seldom now that any thoughts of what our future +relations might ever be, or that any dreams of self-sacrifice for +my friend if he should ever fall in love with my sister, came +into my head. If any such ideas or fancies occurred to me, I felt +satisfied with the present, and drove away all thoughts about the +future. + +Yet, in spite of this intimacy, I continued to look upon it as my +bounden duty to keep the Nechludoffs in general, and Varenika in +particular, in ignorance of my true feelings and tastes, and +strove always to appear altogether another young man than what I +really was--to appear, indeed, such a young man as could never +possibly have existed. I affected to be "soulful" and would go +off into raptures and exclamations and impassioned gestures +whenever I wished it to be thought that anything pleased me, +while, on the other hand, I tried always to seem indifferent +towards any unusual circumstance which I myself perceived or +which I had had pointed out to me. I aimed always at figuring +both as a sarcastic cynic divorced from every sacred tie and as a +shrewd observer, as well as at being accounted logical in all my +conduct, precise and methodical in all my ways of life, and at +the same time contemptuous of all materiality. I may safely say +that I was far better in reality than the strange being into whom +I attempted to convert myself; yet, whatever I was or was not, +the Nechludoffs were unfailingly kind to me, and (happily for +myself) took no notice (as it now appears) of my play-acting. +Only Lubov Sergievna, who, I believe, really believed me to be a +great egoist, atheist, and cynic, had no love for me, but +frequently disputed what I said, flew into tempers, and left me +petrified with her disjointed, irrelevant utterances. Yet Dimitri +held always to the same strange, something more than friendly, +relations with her, and used to say not only that she was +misunderstood by every one, but that she did him a world of good. +This, however, did not prevent the rest of his family from +finding fault with his infatuation. + +Once, when talking to me about this incomprehensible attachment, +Varenika explained the matter thus: "You see, Dimitri is a +selfish person. He is very proud, and, for all his intellect, +very fond of praise, and of surprising people, and of always +being FIRST, while little Auntie" (the general nickname for Lubov +Sergievna) "is innocent enough to admire him, and at the same +time devoid of the tact to conceal her admiration. Consequently +she flatters his vanity--not out of pretence, but sincerely." + +This dictum I laid to heart, and, when thinking it over +afterwards, could not but come to the conclusion that Varenika +was very sensible; wherefore I was glad to award her promotion +thenceforth in my regard. Yet, though I was always glad enough to +assign her any credit which might arise from my discovering in +her character any signs of good sense or other moral qualities, I +did so with strict moderation, and never ran to any extreme pitch +of enthusiasm in the process. Thus, when Sophia Ivanovna (who was +never weary of discussing her niece) related to me how, four +years ago, Varenika had suddenly given away all her clothes to +some peasant children without first asking permission to do so, +so that the garments had subsequently to be recovered, I did not +at once accept the fact as entitling Varenika to elevation in my +opinion, but went on giving her good advice about the +unpracticalness of such views on property. + +When other guests were present at the Nechludoffs (among them, +sometimes, Woloda and Dubkoff) I used to withdraw myself to a +remote plane, and, with the complacency and quiet consciousness +of strength of an habitue of the house, listen to what others +were saying without putting in a remark myself. Yet everything +that these others said seemed to me so immeasurably stupid that I +used to feel inwardly amazed that such a clever, logical woman as +the Princess, with her equally logical family, could listen to +and answer such rubbish. Had it, however, entered into my head to +compare what, others said with what I myself said when there +alone, I should probably have ceased to feel surprise. Still less +should I have continued to feel surprise had I not believed that +the women of our own household--Avdotia, Lubotshka, and Katenka-- +were superior to the rest of their sex, for in that case I should +have remembered the kind of things over which Avdotia and Katenka +would laugh and jest with Dubkoff from one end of an evening to +the other. I should have remembered that seldom did an evening +pass but Dubkoff would first have, an argument about something, +and then read in a sententious voice either some verses beginning +"Au banquet de la vie, infortune convive" or extracts from The +Demon. In short, I should have remembered what nonsense they used +to chatter for hours at a time. + +It need hardly be said that, when guests were present, Varenika +paid less attention to me than when we were alone, as well as +that I was deprived of the reading and music which I so greatly +loved to hear. When talking to guests, she lost, in my eyes, her +principal charm--that of quiet seriousness and simplicity. I +remember how strange it used to seem to me to hear her +discoursing on theatres and the weather to my brother Woloda! I +knew that of all things in the world he most despised and shunned +banality, and that Varenika herself used to make fun of forced +conversations on the weather and similar matters. Why, then, when +meeting in society, did they both of them talk such intolerable +nothings, and, as it were, shame one another? After talks of this +kind I used to feel silently resentful against Woloda, as well as +next day to rally Varenika on her overnight guests. Yet one +result of it was that I derived all the greater pleasure from +being one of the Nechludoffs' family circle. Also, for some +reason or another I began to prefer meeting Dimitri in his +mother's drawing-room to being with him alone. + +XLI + +MY FRIENDSHIP WITH THE NECHLUDOFFS + +At this period, indeed, my friendship with Dimitri hung by a +hair. I had been criticising him too long not to have discovered +faults in his character, for it is only in first youth that we +love passionately and therefore love only perfect people. As soon +as the mists engendered by love of this kind begin to dissolve, +and to be penetrated by the clear beams of reason, we see the +object of our adoration in his true shape, and with all his +virtues and failings exposed. Some of those failings strike us +with the exaggerated force of the unexpected, and combine with +the instinct for novelty and the hope that perfection may yet be +found in a fellow-man to induce us not only to feel coldness, but +even aversion, towards the late object of our adoration. +Consequently, desiring it no longer, we usually cast it from us, +and pass onwards to seek fresh perfection. For the circumstance +that that was not what occurred with respect to my own relation +to Dimitri, I was indebted to his stubborn, punctilious, and more +critical than impulsive attachment to myself--a tie which I felt +ashamed to break. Moreover, our strange vow of frankness bound us +together. We were afraid that, if we parted, we should leave in +one another's power all the incriminatory moral secrets of which +we had made mutual confession. At the same time, our rule of +frankness had long ceased to be faithfully observed, but, on the +contrary, proved a frequent cause of constraint, and brought +about strange relations between us. + +Almost every time that winter that I went upstairs to Dimitri's +room, I used to find there a University friend of his named +Bezobiedoff, with whom he appeared to be very much taken up. +Bezobiedoff was a small, slight fellow, with a face pitted over +with smallpox, freckled, effeminate hands, and a huge flaxen +moustache much in need of the comb. He was invariably dirty, +shabby, uncouth, and uninteresting. To me, Dimitri's relations +with him were as unintelligible as his relations with Lubov +Sergievna, and the only reason he could have had for choosing +such a man for his associate was that in the whole University +there was no worse-looking student than Bezobiedoff. Yet that +alone would have been sufficient to make Dimitri extend him his +friendship, and, as a matter of fact, in all his intercourse with +this fellow he seemed to be saying proudly: "I care nothing who a +man may be. In my eyes every one is equal. I like him, and +therefore he is a desirable acquaintance." Nevertheless I could +not imagine how he could bring himself to do it, nor how the +wretched Bezobiedoff ever contrived to maintain his awkward +position. To me the friendship seemed a most distasteful one. + +One night, I went up to Dimitri's room to try and get him to come +down for an evening's talk in his mother's drawing-room, where we +could also listen to Varenika's reading and singing, but +Bezobiedoff had forestalled me there, and Dimitri answered me +curtly that he could not come down, since, as I could see for +myself, he had a visitor with him. + +"Besides," he added, "what is the fun of sitting there? We had +much better stay HERE and talk." + +I scarcely relished the prospect of spending a couple of hours in +Bezobiedoff's company, yet could not make up my mind to go down +alone; wherefore, cursing my friend's vagaries, I seated myself +in a rocking-chair, and began rocking myself silently to and fro. +I felt vexed with them both for depriving me of the pleasures of +the drawing-room, and my only hope as I listened irritably to +their conversation was that Bezobiedoff would soon take his +departure. "A nice guest indeed to be sitting with!" I thought to +myself when a footman brought in tea and Dimitri had five times +to beg Bezobiedoff to have a cup, for the reason that the bashful +guest thought it incumbent upon him always to refuse it at first +and to say, "No, help yourself." I could see that Dimitri had to +put some restraint upon himself as he resumed the conversation. +He tried to inveigle me also into it, but I remained glum and +silent. + +"I do not mean to let my face give any one the suspicion that I +am bored" was my mental remark to Dimitri as I sat quietly +rocking myself to and fro with measured beat. Yet, as the moments +passed, I found myself--not without a certain satisfaction-- +growing more and more inwardly hostile to my friend. "What a fool +he is!" I reflected. "He might be spending the evening agreeably +with his charming family, yet he goes on sitting with this +brute!--will go on doing so, too, until it is too late to go down +to the drawing-room!" Here I glanced at him over the back of my +chair, and thought the general look of his attitude and +appearance so offensive and repellant that at the moment I could +gladly have offered him some insult, even a most serious one. + +At last Bezobiedoff rose, but Dimitri could not easily let such a +delightful friend depart, and asked him to stay the night. +Fortunately, Bezobiedoff declined the invitation, and departed. +Having seen him off, Dimitri returned, and, smiling a faintly +complacent smile as he did so, and rubbing his hands together (in +all probability partly because he had sustained his character for +eccentricity, and partly because he had got rid of a bore), +started to pace the room, with an occasional glance at myself. I +felt more offended with him than ever. "How can he go on walking +about the room and grinning like that?" was my inward reflection. + +"What are you so angry about?" he asked me suddenly as he halted +in front of my chair. + +"I am not in the least angry," I replied (as people always do +answer under such circumstances). "I am merely vexed that you +should play-act to me, and to Bezobiedoff, and to yourself." + +"What rubbish!" he retorted. "I never play-act to any one." + +"I have in mind our rule of frankness," I replied, "when I tell +you that I am certain you cannot bear this Bezobiedoff any more +than I can. He is an absolute cad, yet for some inexplicable +reason or another it pleases you to masquerade before him." + +"Not at all! To begin with, he is a splendid fellow, and--" + +"But I tell you it IS so. I also tell you that your friendship +for Lubov Sergievna is founded on the same basis, namely, that +she thinks you a god." + +"And I tell you once more that it is not so." + +"Oh, I know it for myself," I retorted with the heat of +suppressed anger, and designing to disarm him with my frankness. +"I have told you before, and I repeat it now, that you always +seem to like people who say pleasant things to you, but that, as +soon as ever I come to examine your friendship, I invariably find +that there exists no real attachment between you." + +"Oh, but you are wrong," said Dimitri with an angry straightening +of the neck in his collar. "When I like people, neither their +praise nor their blame can make any difference to my opinion of +them." + +"Well, dreadful though it may seem to you, I confess that I +myself often used to hate my father when he abused me, and to +wish that he was dead. In the same way, you--" + +"Speak for yourself. I am very sorry that you could ever have +been so--" + +"No, no!" I cried as I leapt from my chair and faced him with the +courage of exasperation. "It is for YOURSELF that you ought to +feel sorry--sorry because you never told me a word about this +fellow. You know that was not honourable of you. Nevertheless, I +will tell YOU what I think of you," and, burning to wound him +even more than he had wounded me, I set out to prove to him that +he was incapable of feeling any real affection for anybody, and +that I had the best of grounds (as in very truth I believed I +had) for reproaching him. I took great pleasure in telling him +all this, but at the same time forgot that the only conceivable +purpose of my doing so--to force him to confess to the faults of +which I had accused him--could not possibly be attained at the +present moment, when he was in a rage. Had he, on the other hand, +been in a condition to argue calmly, I should probably never have +said what I did. + +The dispute was verging upon an open quarrel when Dimitri +suddenly became silent, and left the room. I pursued him, and +continued what I was saying, but he did not answer. I knew that +his failings included a hasty temper, and that he was now +fighting it down; wherefore I cursed his good resolutions the +more in my heart. + +This, then, was what our rule of frankness had brought us to--the +rule that we should "tell one another everything in our minds, +and never discuss one another with a third person!" Many a time +we had exaggerated frankness to the pitch of making mutual +confession of the most shameless thoughts, and of shaming +ourselves by voicing to one another proposals or schemes for +attaining our desires; yet those confessions had not only failed +to draw closer the tie which united us, but had dissipated +sympathy and thrust us further apart, until now pride would not +allow him to expose his feelings even in the smallest detail, and +we employed in our quarrel the very weapons which we had formerly +surrendered to one another--the weapons which could strike the +shrewdest blows! + +XLII + +OUR STEPMOTHER + +Notwithstanding that Papa had not meant to return to Moscow +before the New Year, he arrived in October, when there was still +good riding to hounds to be had in the country. He alleged as his +reason for changing his mind that his suit was shortly to come on +before the Senate, but Mimi averred that Avdotia had found +herself so ennuyee in the country, and had so often talked about +Moscow and pretended to be unwell, that Papa had decided to +accede to her wishes. "You see, she never really loved him--she +and her love only kept buzzing about his ears because she wanted +to marry a rich man," added Mimi with a pensive sigh which said: +"To think what a certain other person could have done for him if +only he had valued her!" + +Yet that "certain other person" was unjust to Avdotia, seeing +that the latter's affection for Papa--the passionate, devoted +love of self-abandonment--revealed itself in her every look and +word and movement. At the same time, that love in no way hindered +her, not only from being averse to parting with her adored +husband, but also from desiring to visit Madame Annette's and +order there a lovely cap, a hat trimmed with a magnificent blue +ostrich feather, and a blue Venetian velvet bodice which was to +expose to the public gaze the snowy, well +shaped breast and arms which no one had yet gazed upon except her +husband and maids. Of course Katenka sided with her mother and, +in general, there became established between Avdotia and +ourselves, from the day of her arrival, the most extraordinary +and burlesque order of relations. As soon as she stepped from the +carriage, Woloda assumed an air of great seriousness and +ceremony, and, advancing towards her with much bowing and +scraping, said in the tone of one who is presenting something for +acceptance: + +"I have the honour to greet the arrival of our dear Mamma, and to +kiss her hand." + +"Ah, my dear son!" she replied with her beautiful, unvarying +smile. + +"And do not forget the younger son," I said as I also approached +her hand, with an involuntary imitation of Woloda's voice and +expression. + +Had our stepmother and ourselves been certain of any mutual +affection, that expression might have signified contempt for any +outward manifestation of our love. Had we been ill-disposed +towards one another, it might have denoted irony, or contempt for +pretence, or a desire to conceal from Papa (standing by the +while) our real relations, as well as many other thoughts and +sentiments. But, as a matter of fact, that expression (which well +consorted with Avdotia's own spirit) simply signified nothing at +all--simply concealed the absence of any definite relations +between us. In later life I often had occasion to remark, in the +case of other families whose members anticipated among themselves +relations not altogether harmonious, the sort of provisional, +burlesque relations which they formed for daily use; and it was +just such relations as those which now became established between +ourselves and our stepmother. We scarcely ever strayed beyond +them, but were polite to her, conversed with her in French, bowed +and scraped before her, and called her "chere Maman"--a term to +which she always responded in a tone of similar lightness and +with her beautiful, unchanging smile. Only the lachrymose +Lubotshka, with her goose feet and artless prattle, really liked +our stepmother, or tried, in her naive and frequently awkward +way, to bring her and ourselves together: wherefore the only +person in the world for whom, besides Papa, Avdotia had a spark +of affection was Lubotshka. Indeed, Avdotia always treated her +with a kind of grave admiration and timid deference which greatly +surprised me. + +From the first Avdotia was very fond of calling herself our +stepmother and hinting that, since children and servants usually +adopt an unjust and hostile attitude towards a woman thus +situated, her own position was likely to prove a difficult one. +Yet, though she foresaw all the unpleasantness of her +predicament, she did nothing to escape from it by (for instance) +conciliating this one, giving presents to that other one, and +forbearing to grumble--the last a precaution which it would have +been easy for her to take, seeing that by nature she was in no +way exacting, as well as very good-tempered. Yet, not only did +she do none of these things, but her expectation of difficulties +led her to adopt the defensive before she had been attacked. That +is to say, supposing that the entire household was designing to +show her every kind of insult and annoyance, she would see plots +where no plots were, and consider that her most dignified course +was to suffer in silence--an attitude of passivity as regards +winning AFfection which of course led to DISaffection. Moreover, +she was so totally lacking in that faculty of "apprehension" to +which I have already referred as being highly developed in our +household, and all her customs were so utterly opposed to those +which had long been rooted in our establishment, that those two +facts alone were bound to go against her. From the first, her mode +of life in our tidy, methodical household was that of a person +only just arrived there. Sometimes she went to bed late, +sometimes early; sometimes she appeared at luncheon, sometimes +she did not; sometimes she took supper, sometimes she dispensed +with it. When we had no guests with us she more often than not +walked about the house in a semi-nude condition, and was not +ashamed to appear before us--even before the servants--in a white +chemise, with only a shawl thrown over her bare shoulders. At +first this Bohemianism pleased me, but before very long it led to +my losing the last shred of respect which I felt for her. What +struck me as even more strange was the fact that, according as we +had or had not guests, she was two different women. The one (the +woman figuring in society) was a young and healthy, but rather +cold, beauty, a person richly dressed, neither stupid nor clever, +and unfailingly cheerful. The other woman (the one in evidence +when no guests were present) was considerably past her first +youth, languid, depressed, slovenly, and ennuyee, though +affectionate. Frequently, as I looked at her when, smiling, rosy +with the winter air, and happy in the consciousness of her +beauty, she came in from a round of calls and, taking off her +hat, went to look at herself in a mirror; or when, rustling in +her rich, decollete ball dress, and at once shy and proud before the +servants, she was passing to her carriage; or when, at one of our +small receptions at home, she was sitting dressed in a high +silken dress finished with some sort of fine lace about her soft +neck, and flashing her unvarying, but lovely, smile around her--as +I looked at her at such times I could not help wondering what +would have been said by persons who had been ravished to behold +her thus if they could have seen her as I often saw her, namely, +when, waiting in the lonely midnight hours for her husband to +return from his club, she would walk like a shadow from room to +room, with her hair dishevelled and her form clad in a sort of +dressing-jacket. Presently, she would sit down to the piano and, +her brows all puckered with the effort, play over the only waltz +that she knew; after which she would pick up a novel, read a few +pages somewhere in the middle of it, and throw it aside. Next, +repairing in person to the dining-room, so as not to disturb the +servants, she would get herself a cucumber and some cold veal, +and eat it standing by the window-sill--then once more resume her +weary, aimless, gloomy wandering from room to room. But what, +above all other things, caused estrangement between us was that +lack of understanding which expressed itself chiefly in the +peculiar air of indulgent attention with which she would listen +when any one was speaking to her concerning matters of which she +had no knowledge. It was not her fault that she acquired the +unconscious habit of bending her head down and smiling slightly +with her lips only when she found it necessary to converse on +topics which did not interest her (which meant any topic except +herself and her husband); yet that smile and that inclination of +the head, when incessantly repeated, could become unbearably +wearisome. Also, her peculiar gaiety--which always sounded as +though she were laughing at herself, at you, and at the world in +general--was gauche and anything but infectious, while her +sympathy was too evidently forced. Lastly, she knew no reticence +with regard to her ceaseless rapturising to all and sundry +concerning her love for Papa. Although she only spoke the truth +when she said that her whole life was bound up with him, and +although she proved it her life long, we considered such +unrestrained, continual insistence upon her affection for him bad +form, and felt more ashamed for her when she was descanting thus +before strangers even than we did when she was perpetrating bad +blunders in French. Yet, although, as I have said, she loved her +husband more than anything else in the world, and he too had a +great affection for her (or at all events he had at first, and +when he saw that others besides himself admired her beauty), it +seemed almost as though she purposely did everything most likely +to displease him--simply to prove to him the strength of her +love, her readiness to sacrifice herself for his sake, and the +fact that her one aim in life was to win his affection! She was +fond of display, and my father too liked to see her as a beauty +who excited wonder and admiration; yet she sacrificed her +weakness for fine clothes to her love for him, and grew more and +more accustomed to remain at home in a plain grey blouse. Again, +Papa considered freedom and equality to be indispensable +conditions of family life, and hoped that his favourite Lubotshka +and his kind-hearted young wife would become sincere friends; yet +once again Avdotia sacrificed herself by considering it incumbent +upon her to pay the "real mistress of the house," as she called +Lubotshka, an amount of deference which only shocked and annoyed +my father. Likewise, he played cards a great deal that winter, +and lost considerable sums towards the end of it, wherefore, +unwilling, as usual, to let his gambling affairs intrude upon his +family life, he began to preserve complete secrecy concerning his +play; yet Avdotia, though often ailing, as well as, towards the +end of the winter, enceinte, considered herself bound always to +sit up (in a grey blouse, and with her hair dishevelled) for my +father when, at, say, four or five o'clock in the morning, he +returned home from the club ashamed, depleted in pocket, and +weary. She would ask him absent-mindedly whether he had been +fortunate in play, and listen with indulgent attention, little +nods of her head, and a faint smile upon her face as he told her +of his doings at the club and begged her, for about the hundredth +time, never to sit up for him again. Yet, though Papa's winnings +or losings (upon which his substance practically depended) in no +way interested her, she was always the first to meet him when he +returned home in the small hours of the morning. This she was +incited to do, not only by the strength of her devotion, but by a +certain secret jealousy from which she suffered. No one in the +world could persuade her that it was REALLY from his club, and +not from a mistress's, that Papa came home so late. She would try +to read love secrets in his face, and, discerning none there, +would sigh with a sort of enjoyment of her grief, and give +herself up once more to the contemplation of her unhappiness. + +As the result of these and many other constant sacrifices which +occurred in Papa's relations with his wife during the +latter months of that winter (a time when he lost much, and was +therefore out of spirits), there gradually grew up between the +two an intermittent feeling of tacit hostility--of restrained +aversion to the object of devotion of the kind which expresses +itself in an unconscious eagerness to show the object in question +every possible species of petty annoyance. + +XLIII + +NEW COMRADES + +The winter had passed imperceptibly and the thaw begun when the +list of examinations was posted at the University, and I suddenly +remembered that I had to return answers to questions in eighteen +subjects on which I had heard lectures delivered, but with regard +to some of which I had taken no notes and made no preparation +whatever. It seems strange that the question "How am I going to +pass?" should never have entered my head, but the truth is that +all that winter I had been in such a state of haze through the +delights of being both grown-up and "comme il faut" that, +whenever the question of the examinations had occurred to me, I +had mentally compared myself with my comrades, and thought to +myself, "They are certain to pass, and as most of them are not +'comme il faut,' and I am therefore their personal superior, I +too am bound to come out all right." In fact, the only reason why +I attended lectures at all was that I might become an habitue of +the University, and obtain Papa's leave to go in and out of the +house. Moreover, I had many acquaintances now, and often enjoyed +myself vastly at the University. I loved the racket, talking, and +laughter in the auditorium, the opportunities for sitting on a +back bench, and letting the measured voice of the professor lure +one into dreams as one contemplated one's comrades, the +occasional runnings across the way for a snack and a glass of +vodka (sweetened by the fearful joy of knowing that one might be +hauled before the professor for so doing), the stealthy closing +of the door as one returned to the auditorium, and the +participation in "course versus course" scuffles in the +corridors. All this was very enjoyable. + +By the time, however, that every one had begun to put in a better +attendance at lectures, and the professor of physics had +completed his course and taken his leave of us until the +examinations came on, and the students were busy collecting their +notebooks and arranging to do their preparation in parties, it +struck me that I also had better prepare for the ordeal. Operoff, +with whom I still continued on bowing, but otherwise most frigid, +terms, suddenly offered not only to lend me his notebooks, but to +let me do my preparation with himself and some other students. I +thanked him, and accepted the invitation--hoping by that +conferment of honour completely to dissipate our old +misunderstanding; but at the same time I requested that the +gatherings should always be held at my home, since my quarters +were so splendid! To this the students replied that they meant to +take turn and turn about--sometimes to meet at one fellow's +place, sometimes at another's, as might be most convenient. + +The first of our reunions was held at Zuchin's, who had a small +partition-room in a large building on the Trubni Boulevard. The +opening night I arrived late, and entered when the reading aloud +had already begun. The little apartment was thick with tobacco- +smoke, while on the table stood a bottle of vodka, a decanter, +some bread, some salt, and a shin-bone of mutton. Without rising, +Zuchin asked me to have some vodka and to doff my tunic. + +"I expect you are not accustomed to such entertainment," he +added. + +Every one was wearing a dirty cotton shirt and a dickey. +Endeavouring not to show my contempt for the company, I took off +my tunic, and lay down in a sociable manner on the sofa. Zuchin +went on reading aloud and correcting himself with the help of +notebooks, while the others occasionally stopped him to ask a +question, which he always answered with ability, correctness, and +precision. I listened for a time with the rest, but, not +understanding much of it, since I had not been present at what +had been read before, soon interpolated a question. + +"Hullo, old fellow! It will be no good for you to listen if you +do not know the subject," said Zuchin. "I will lend you my +notebooks, and then you can read it up by to-morrow, and I will +explain it to you." + +I felt rather ashamed of my ignorance. Also, I felt the truth of +what he said; so I gave up listening, and amused myself by +observing my new comrades. According to my classification of +humanity, into persons "comme il faut" and persons not "comme il +faut," they evidently belonged to the latter category, and so +aroused in me not only a feeling of contempt, but also a certain +sensation of personal hostility, for the reason that, though not +"comme il faut," they accounted me their equal, and actually +patronised me in a sort of good-humoured fashion. What in +particular excited in me this feeling was their feet, their dirty +nails and fingers, a particularly long talon on Operoff's +obtrusive little finger, their red shirts, their dickeys, the +chaff which they good-naturedly threw at one another, the dirty +room, a habit which Zuchin had of continually snuffling and +pressing a finger to his nose, and, above all, their manner of +speaking--that is to say, their use and intonation of words. For +instance, they said "flat" for fool, "just the ticket" for +exactly, "grandly" for splendidly, and so on--all of which seemed +to me either bookish or disagreeably vulgar. Still more was my +"comme il faut " refinement disturbed by the accents which they +put upon certain Russian--and, still more, upon foreign--words. +Thus they said dieYATelnost for DIEyatelnost, NARochno for +naROChno, v'KAMinie for v'kaMINie, SHAKespeare for ShakesPEARe, +and so forth. + +Yet, for all their insuperably repellent exterior, I could detect +something good in these fellows, and envied them the cheerful +good-fellowship which united them in one. Consequently, I began to +feel attracted towards them, and made up my mind that, come what +might, I would become of their number. The kind and honourable +Operoff I knew already, and now the brusque, but exceptionally +clever, Zuchin (who evidently took the lead in this circle) began +to please me greatly. He was a dark, thick-set little fellow, +with a perennially glistening, polished face, but one that was +extremely lively, intellectual, and independent in its +expression. That expression it derived from a low, but +prominent, forehead, deep black eyes, short, bristly hair, and a +thick, dark beard which looked as though it stood in constant +need of trimming. Although, too, he seemed to think nothing of +himself (a trail which always pleased me in people), it was clear +that he never let his brain rest. He had one of those expressive +faces which, a few hours after you have seen them for the first +time, change suddenly and entirely to your view. Such a change +took place, in my eyes, with regard to Zuchin's face towards the +end of that evening. Suddenly, I seemed to see new wrinkles appear +upon its surface, its eyes grow deeper, its smile become a +different one, and the whole face assume such an altered aspect +that I scarcely recognised it. + +When the reading was ended, Zuchin, the other students, and +myself manifested our desire to be "comrades all" by drinking +vodka until little remained in the bottle. Thereupon Zuchin asked +if any one had a quarter-rouble to spare, so that he could send +the old woman who looked after him to buy some more; yet, on my +offering to provide the money, he made as though he had not heard +me, and turned to Operoff, who pulled out a purse sewn with +bugles, and handed him the sum required. + +"And mind you don't get drunk," added the giver, who himself had +not partaken of the vodka. + +"By heavens!" answered Zuchin as he sucked the marrow out of a +mutton bone (I remember thinking that it must be because he ate +marrow that he was so clever). "By heavens!" he went on with a +slight smile (and his smile was of the kind that one +involuntarily noticed, and somehow felt grateful for), "even if I +did get drunk, there would be no great harm done. I wonder which +of us two could look after himself the better--you or I? Anyway I +am willing to make the experiment," and he slapped his forehead +with mock boastfulness. "But what a pity it is that Semenoff has +disappeared! He has gone and completely hidden himself +somewhere." + +Sure enough, the grey-haired Semenoff who had comforted me so +much at my first examination by being worse dressed than myself, +and who, after passing the second examination, had attended his +lectures regularly during the first month, had disappeared +thereafter from view, and never been seen at the University +throughout the latter part of the course. + +"Where is he?" asked some one. + +"I do not know" replied Zuchin. "He has escaped my eye +altogether. Yet what fun I used to have with him! What fire there +was in the man! and what an intellect! I should be indeed sorry +if he has come to grief--and come to grief he probably has, for +he was no mere boy to take his University course in instalments." + +After a little further conversation, and agreeing to meet again +the next night at Zuchin's, since his abode was the most central +point for us all, we began to disperse. As, one by one, we left +the room, my conscience started pricking me because every one +seemed to be going home on foot, whereas I had my drozhki. +Accordingly, with some hesitation I offered Operoff a lift. +Zuchin came to the door with us, and, after borrowing a rouble of +Operoff, went off to make a night of it with some friends. As we +drove along, Operoff told me a good deal about Zuchin's character +and mode of life, and on reaching home it was long before I could +get to sleep for thinking of the new acquaintances I had made. +For many an hour, as I lay awake, I kept wavering between the +respect which their knowledge, simplicity, and sense of honour, +as well as the poetry of their youth and courage, excited in my +regard, and the distaste which I felt for their outward man. In +spite of my desire to do so, it was at that time literally +impossible for me to associate with them, since our ideas were +too wholly at variance. For me, life's meaning and charm contained +an infinitude of shades of which they had not an inkling, and +vice versa. The greatest obstacles of all, however, to our better +acquaintance I felt to be the twenty roubles' worth of cloth in +my tunic, my drozhki, and my white linen shirt; and they appeared +to me most important obstacles, since they made me feel as though +I had unwittingly insulted these comrades by displaying such +tokens of my wealth. I felt guilty in their eyes, and as though, +whether I accepted or rejected their acquittal and took a line of +my own, I could never enter into equal and unaffected relations +with them. Yet to such an extent did the stirring poetry of the +courage which I could detect in Zuchin (in particular) overshadow +the coarse, vicious side of his nature that the latter made no +unpleasant impression upon me. + +For a couple of weeks I visited Zuchin's almost every night for +purposes of work. Yet I did very little there, since, as I have +said, I had lost ground at the start, and, not having sufficient +grit in me to catch up my companions by solitary study, was +forced merely to PRETEND that I was listening to and taking in +all they were reading. I have an idea, too, that they divined my +pretence, since I often noticed that they passed over points +which they themselves knew without first inquiring of me whether +I did the same. Yet, day by day, I was coming to regard the +vulgarity of this circle with more indulgence, to feel +increasingly drawn towards its way of life, and to find in it +much that was poetical. Only my word of honour to Dimitri that I +would never indulge in dissipation with these new comrades kept +me from deciding also to share their diversions. + +Once, I thought I would make a display of my knowledge of +literature, particularly French literature, and so led the +conversation to that theme. Judge, then, of my surprise when I +discovered that not only had my companions been reading the +foreign passages in Russian, but that they had studied far more +foreign works than I had, and knew and could appraise English, +and even Spanish, writers of whom I had never so much as heard! +Likewise, Pushkin and Zhukovski represented to them LITERATURE, +and not, as to myself, certain books in yellow covers which I had +once read and studied when a child. For Dumas and Sue they had an +almost equal contempt, and, in general, were competent to form +much better and clearer judgments on literary matters than I was, +for all that I refused to recognise the fact. In knowledge of +music, too, I could not beat them, and was astonished to find +that Operoff played the violin, and another student the cello +and piano, while both of them were members of the University +orchestra, and possessed a wide knowledge of and appreciation of +good music. In short, with the exception of the French and German +languages, my companions were better posted at every point than I +was, yet not the least proud of the fact. True, I might have +plumed myself on my position as a man of the world, but Woloda +excelled me even in that. Wherein, then, lay the height from +which I presumed to look down upon these comrades? In my +acquaintanceship with Prince Ivan Ivanovitch? In my ability to +speak French? In my drozhki? In my linen shirt? In my finger- +nails? "Surely these things are all rubbish," was the thought +which would come flitting through my head under the influence of +the envy which the good-fellowship and kindly, youthful gaiety +displayed around me excited in my breast. Every one addressed his +interlocutor in the second person singular. True, the familiarity +of this address almost approximated to rudeness, yet even the +boorish exterior of the speaker could not conceal a constant +endeavour never to hurt another one's feelings. The terms "brute" +or "swine," when used in this good-natured fashion, only +convulsed me, and gave me cause for inward merriment. In no way +did they offend the person addressed, or prevent the company at +large from remaining on the most sincere and friendly footing. In +all their intercourse these youths were delicate and forbearing +in a way that only very poor and very young men can be. However +much I might detect in Zuchin's character and amusements an +element of coarseness and profligacy, I could also detect the +fact that his drinking-bouts were of a very different order to +the puerility with burnt rum and champagne in which I had +participated at Baron Z.'s. + +XLIV + +ZUCHIN AND SEMENOFF + +Although I do not know what class of society Zuchin belonged to, +I know that, without the help either of means or social position, +he had matriculated from the Seventh Gymnasium. At that time he +was eighteen--though he looked much older--and very clever, +especially in his powers of assimilation. To him it was easier to +survey the whole of some complicated subject, to foresee its +various parts and deductions, than to use that knowledge, when +gained, for reasoning out the exact laws to which those +deductions were due. He knew that he was clever, and of the fact +he was proud; yet from that very pride arose the circumstance that +he treated every one with unvarying simplicity and good-nature. +Moreover, his experience of life must have been considerable, +for already he had squandered much love, friendship, activity, +and money. Though poor and moving only in the lower ranks of +society, there was nothing which he had ever attempted for +which he did not thenceforth feel the contempt, the indifference, +or the utter disregard which were bound to result from his +attaining his goal too easily. In fact, the very ardour with +which he applied himself to a new pursuit seemed to be due +to his contempt for what he had already attained, since his +abilities always led him to success, and therefore to a certain +right to despise it. With the sciences it was the same. Though +little interested in them, and taking no notes, he knew +mathematics thoroughly, and was uttering no vain boast when he +said that he could beat the professor himself. Much of what he +heard said in lectures he thought rubbish, yet with his peculiar +habit of unconsciously practical roguishness he feigned to +subscribe to all that the professors thought important, and every +professor adored him. True, he was outspoken to the authorities, +but they none the less respected him. Besides disliking and +despising the sciences, he despised all who laboured to attain +what he himself had mastered so easily, since the sciences, as he +understood them, did not occupy one-tenth part of his powers. In +fact, life, as he saw it from the student's standpoint, contained +nothing to which he could devote himself wholly, and his +impetuous, active nature (as he himself often said) demanded life +complete: wherefore he frequented the drinking-bout in so far as +he could afford it, and surrendered himself to dissipation +chiefly out of a desire to get as far away from himself as +possible. Consequently, just as the examinations were +approaching, Operoff's prophecy to me came true, for Zuchin +wasted two whole weeks in this fashion, and we had to do the +latter part of our preparation at another student's. Yet at the +first examination he reappeared with pale, haggard face and +tremulous hands, and passed brilliantly into the second course! + +The company of roisterers of which Zuchin had been the leader +since its formation at the beginning of the term consisted of +eight students, among whom, at first, had been numbered Ikonin +and Semenoff; but the former had left under the strain of the +continuous revelry in which the band had indulged in the early +part of the term, and the latter seceded later for reasons which +were never wholly explained. In its early days this band had been +looked upon with awe by all the fellows of our course, and had +had its exploits much discussed. Of these exploits the leading +heroes had been Zuchin and, towards the end of the term, +Semenoff, but the latter had come to be generally shunned, and to +cause disturbances on the rare occasions when he attended a +lecture. Just before the examinations began, he rounded off his +drinking exploits in a most energetic and original fashion, as I +myself had occasion to witness (through my acquaintanceship with +Zuchin). This is how it was. One evening we had just assembled at +Zuchin's, and Operoff, reinforcing a candlestick with a candle +stuck in a bottle, had just plunged his nose into his notebooks +and begun to read aloud in his thin voice from his neatly-written +notes on physics, when the landlady entered the room, and +informed Zuchin that some one had brought a note for him . . +.[The remainder of this chapter is omitted in the original.] + +XLV + +I COME TO GRIEF + +At length the first examination--on differentials and integrals-- +drew near, but I continued in a vague state which precluded me +from forming any clear idea of what was awaiting me. Every +evening, after consorting with Zuchin and the rest, the thought +would occur to me that there was something in my convictions +which I must change - something wrong and mistaken; yet every +morning the daylight would find me again satisfied to be "comme +il faut," and desirous of no change whatsoever. + +Such was the frame of mind in which I attended for the first +examination. I seated myself on the bench where the princes, +counts, and barons always sat, and began talking to them in +French, with the not unnatural result that I never gave another +thought to the answers which I was shortly to return to questions +in a subject of which I knew nothing. I gazed supinely at other +students as they went up to be examined, and even allowed myself +to chaff some of them. + +"Well, Grap," I said to Ilinka (who, from our first entry into +the University, had shaken off my influence, had ceased to smile +when I spoke to him, and always remained ill-disposed towards +me), "have you survived the ordeal?" + +"Yes," retorted Ilinka. "Let us see if YOU can do so." + +I smiled contemptuously at the answer, notwithstanding that the +doubt which he had expressed had given me a momentary shock. Once +again, however, indifference overlaid that feeling, and I +remained so entirely absent-minded and supine that, the very +moment after I had been examined (a mere formality for me, as it +turned out) I was making a dinner appointment with Baron Z. When +called out with Ikonin, I smoothed the creases in my uniform, and +walked up to the examiner's table with perfect sang froid. + +True, a slight shiver of apprehension ran down my back when the +young professor--the same one as had examined me for my +matriculation--looked me straight in the face as I reached across +to the envelope containing the tickets. Ikonin, though taking a +ticket with the same plunge of his whole body as he had done at +the previous examinations, did at least return some sort of an +answer this time, though a poor one. I, on the contrary, did just +as he had done on the two previous occasions, or even worse, +since I took a second ticket, yet for a second time returned no +answer. The professor looked me compassionately in the face, and +said in a quiet, but determined, voice: + +"You will not pass into the second course, Monsieur Irtenieff. +You had better not complete the examinations. The faculty must be +weeded out. The same with you, Monsieur Ikonin." + +Ikonin implored leave to finish the examinations, as a great +favour, but the professor replied that he (Ikonin) was not likely +to do in two days what he had not succeeded in doing in a year, +and that he had not the smallest chance of passing. Ikonin +renewed his humble, piteous appeals, but the professor was +inexorable. + +"You can go, gentlemen," he remarked in the same quiet, resolute +voice. + +I was only too glad to do so, for I felt ashamed of seeming, by +my silent presence, to be joining in Ikonin's humiliating prayers +for grace. I have no recollection of how I threaded my way +through the students in the hall, nor of what I replied to their +questions, nor of how I passed into the vestibule and departed +home. I was offended, humiliated, and genuinely unhappy. + +For three days I never left my room, and saw no one, but found +relief in copious tears. I should have sought a pistol to shoot +myself if I had had the necessary determination for the deed. I +thought that Ilinka Grap would spit in my face when he next met +me, and that he would have the right to do so; that Operoff would +rejoice at my misfortune, and tell every one of it; that +Kolpikoff had justly shamed me that night at the restaurant; that +my stupid speeches to Princess Kornikoff had had their fitting +result; and so on, and so on. All the moments in my life which +had been for me most difficult and painful recurred to my mind. I +tried to blame some one for my calamity, and thought that some +one must have done it on purpose--must have conspired a whole +intrigue against me. Next, I murmured against the professors, +against my comrades, Woloda, Dimitri, and Papa (the last for +having sent me to the University at all). Finally, I railed at +Providence for ever having let me see such ignominy. Believing +myself ruined for ever in the eyes of all who knew me, I besought +Papa to let me go into the hussars or to the Caucasus. Naturally, +Papa was anything but pleased at what had happened; yet, on +seeing my passionate grief, he comforted me by saying that, +though it was a bad business, it might yet be mended by my +transferring to another faculty. Woloda, who also saw nothing +very terrible in my misfortune, added that at least I should not +be put out of countenance in a new faculty, since I should have +new comrades there. As for the ladies of the household, they +neither knew nor cared what either an examination or a plucking +meant, and condoled with me only because they saw me in such +distress. Dimitri came to see me every day, and was very kind and +consolatory throughout; but for that very reason he seemed to me +to have grown colder than before. It always hurt me and made me +feel uncomfortable when he came up to my room and seated himself +in silence beside me, much as a doctor might scat himself by the +bedside of an awkward patient. Sophia Ivanovna and Varenika sent +me books for which I had expressed a wish, as also an invitation +to go and see them, but in that very thoughtfulness of theirs I +saw only proud, humiliating condescension to one who had fallen +beyond forgiveness. Although, in three days' time, I grew calmer, +it was not until we departed for the country that I left the +house, but spent the time in nursing my grief and wandering, +fearful of all the household, through the various rooms. + +One evening, as I was sitting deep in thought and listening to +Avdotia playing her waltz, I suddenly leapt to my feet, ran +upstairs, got out the copy-book whereon I had once inscribed +"Rules of My Life," opened it, and experienced my first moment of +repentance and moral resolution. True, I burst into tears once +more, but they were no longer tears of despair. Pulling myself +together, I set about writing out a fresh set of rules, in the +assured conviction that never again would I do a wrong action, +waste a single moment on frivolity, or alter the rules which I +now decided to frame. + +How long that moral impulse lasted, what it consisted of, and +what new principles I devised for my moral growth I will relate +when speaking of the ensuing and happier portion of my early +manhood. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Youth, by by Leo Tolstoy + diff --git a/old/youth10.zip b/old/youth10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c08bf9b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/youth10.zip |