The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Duel and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov,
Translated by Constance Garnett


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Title: The Duel and Other Stories

Author: Anton Chekhov

Release Date: September 24, 2004  [eBook #13505]
[Last updated: June 6, 2013]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUEL AND OTHER STORIES***


E-text prepared by James Rusk



THE DUEL AND OTHER STORIES

by

ANTON TCHEKHOV

Translated by Constance Garnett







CONTENTS


THE DUEL
EXCELLENT PEOPLE
MIRE
NEIGHBOURS
AT HOME
EXPENSIVE LESSONS
THE PRINCESS
THE CHEMIST'S WIFE




THE DUEL

I

It was eight o'clock in the morning--the time when the officers,
the local officials, and the visitors usually took their morning
dip in the sea after the hot, stifling night, and then went into
the pavilion to drink tea or coffee. Ivan Andreitch Laevsky, a thin,
fair young man of twenty-eight, wearing the cap of a clerk in the
Ministry of Finance and with slippers on his feet, coming down to
bathe, found a number of acquaintances on the beach, and among them
his friend Samoylenko, the army doctor.

With his big cropped head, short neck, his red face, his big nose,
his shaggy black eyebrows and grey whiskers, his stout puffy figure
and his hoarse military bass, this Samoylenko made on every newcomer
the unpleasant impression of a gruff bully; but two or three days
after making his acquaintance, one began to think his face
extraordinarily good-natured, kind, and even handsome. In spite of
his clumsiness and rough manner, he was a peaceable man, of infinite
kindliness and goodness of heart, always ready to be of use. He was
on familiar terms with every one in the town, lent every one money,
doctored every one, made matches, patched up quarrels, arranged
picnics at which he cooked _shashlik_ and an awfully good soup of
grey mullets. He was always looking after other people's affairs
and trying to interest some one on their behalf, and was always
delighted about something. The general opinion about him was that
he was without faults of character. He had only two weaknesses: he
was ashamed of his own good nature, and tried to disguise it by a
surly expression and an assumed gruffness; and he liked his assistants
and his soldiers to call him "Your Excellency," although he was
only a civil councillor.

"Answer one question for me, Alexandr Daviditch," Laevsky began,
when both he and Samoylenko were in the water up to their shoulders.
"Suppose you had loved a woman and had been living with her for two
or three years, and then left off caring for her, as one does, and
began to feel that you had nothing in common with her. How would
you behave in that case?"

"It's very simple. 'You go where you please, madam'--and that
would be the end of it."

"It's easy to say that! But if she has nowhere to go? A woman with
no friends or relations, without a farthing, who can't work . . ."

"Well? Five hundred roubles down or an allowance of twenty-five
roubles a month--and nothing more. It's very simple."

"Even supposing you have five hundred roubles and can pay twenty-five
roubles a month, the woman I am speaking of is an educated woman
and proud. Could you really bring yourself to offer her money? And
how would you do it?"

Samoylenko was going to answer, but at that moment a big wave covered
them both, then broke on the beach and rolled back noisily over the
shingle. The friends got out and began dressing.

"Of course, it is difficult to live with a woman if you don't love
her," said Samoylenko, shaking the sand out of his boots. "But one
must look at the thing humanely, Vanya. If it were my case, I should
never show a sign that I did not love her, and I should go on living
with her till I died."

He was at once ashamed of his own words; he pulled himself up and
said:

"But for aught I care, there might be no females at all. Let them
all go to the devil!"

The friends dressed and went into the pavilion. There Samoylenko
was quite at home, and even had a special cup and saucer. Every
morning they brought him on a tray a cup of coffee, a tall cut glass
of iced water, and a tiny glass of brandy. He would first drink the
brandy, then the hot coffee, then the iced water, and this must
have been very nice, for after drinking it his eyes looked moist
with pleasure, he would stroke his whiskers with both hands, and
say, looking at the sea:

"A wonderfully magnificent view!"

After a long night spent in cheerless, unprofitable thoughts which
prevented him from sleeping, and seemed to intensify the darkness
and sultriness of the night, Laevsky felt listless and shattered.
He felt no better for the bathe and the coffee.

"Let us go on with our talk, Alexandr Daviditch," he said. "I won't
make a secret of it; I'll speak to you openly as to a friend. Things
are in a bad way with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and me . . . a very bad
way! Forgive me for forcing my private affairs upon you, but I must
speak out."

Samoylenko, who had a misgiving of what he was going to speak about,
dropped his eyes and drummed with his fingers on the table.

"I've lived with her for two years and have ceased to love her,"
Laevsky went on; "or, rather, I realised that I never had felt any
love for her. . . . These two years have been a mistake."

It was Laevsky's habit as he talked to gaze attentively at the pink
palms of his hands, to bite his nails, or to pinch his cuffs. And
he did so now.

"I know very well you can't help me," he said. "But I tell you,
because unsuccessful and superfluous people like me find their
salvation in talking. I have to generalise about everything I do.
I'm bound to look for an explanation and justification of my absurd
existence in somebody else's theories, in literary types--in the
idea that we, upper-class Russians, are degenerating, for instance,
and so on. Last night, for example, I comforted myself by thinking
all the time: 'Ah, how true Tolstoy is, how mercilessly true!' And
that did me good. Yes, really, brother, he is a great writer, say
what you like!"

Samoylenko, who had never read Tolstoy and was intending to do so
every day of his life, was a little embarrassed, and said:

"Yes, all other authors write from imagination, but he writes
straight from nature."

"My God!" sighed Laevsky; "how distorted we all are by civilisation!
I fell in love with a married woman and she with me. . . . To begin
with, we had kisses, and calm evenings, and vows, and Spencer, and
ideals, and interests in common. . . . What a deception! We really
ran away from her husband, but we lied to ourselves and made out
that we ran away from the emptiness of the life of the educated
class. We pictured our future like this: to begin with, in the
Caucasus, while we were getting to know the people and the place,
I would put on the Government uniform and enter the service; then
at our leisure we would pick out a plot of ground, would toil in
the sweat of our brow, would have a vineyard and a field, and so
on. If you were in my place, or that zoologist of yours, Von Koren,
you might live with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna for thirty years, perhaps,
and might leave your heirs a rich vineyard and three thousand acres
of maize; but I felt like a bankrupt from the first day. In the
town you have insufferable heat, boredom, and no society; if you
go out into the country, you fancy poisonous spiders, scorpions,
or snakes lurking under every stone and behind every bush, and
beyond the fields--mountains and the desert. Alien people, an
alien country, a wretched form of civilisation--all that is not
so easy, brother, as walking on the Nevsky Prospect in one's fur
coat, arm-in-arm with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, dreaming of the sunny
South. What is needed here is a life and death struggle, and I'm
not a fighting man. A wretched neurasthenic, an idle gentleman
. . . . From the first day I knew that my dreams of a life of labour
and of a vineyard were worthless. As for love, I ought to tell you
that living with a woman who has read Spencer and has followed you
to the ends of the earth is no more interesting than living with
any Anfissa or Akulina. There's the same smell of ironing, of powder,
and of medicines, the same curl-papers every morning, the same
self-deception."

"You can't get on in the house without an iron," said Samoylenko,
blushing at Laevsky's speaking to him so openly of a lady he knew.
"You are out of humour to-day, Vanya, I notice. Nadyezhda Fyodorovna
is a splendid woman, highly educated, and you are a man of the
highest intellect. Of course, you are not married," Samoylenko went
on, glancing round at the adjacent tables, "but that's not your
fault; and besides . . . one ought to be above conventional prejudices
and rise to the level of modern ideas. I believe in free love myself,
yes. . . . But to my thinking, once you have settled together, you
ought to go on living together all your life."

"Without love?"

"I will tell you directly," said Samoylenko. "Eight years ago there
was an old fellow, an agent, here--a man of very great intelligence.
Well, he used to say that the great thing in married life was
patience. Do you hear, Vanya? Not love, but patience. Love cannot
last long. You have lived two years in love, and now evidently your
married life has reached the period when, in order to preserve
equilibrium, so to speak, you ought to exercise all your
patience. . . ."

"You believe in your old agent; to me his words are meaningless.
Your old man could be a hypocrite; he could exercise himself in the
virtue of patience, and, as he did so, look upon a person he did
not love as an object indispensable for his moral exercises; but I
have not yet fallen so low. If I want to exercise myself in patience,
I will buy dumb-bells or a frisky horse, but I'll leave human beings
alone."

Samoylenko asked for some white wine with ice. When they had drunk
a glass each, Laevsky suddenly asked:

"Tell me, please, what is the meaning of softening of the brain?"

"How can I explain it to you? . . . It's a disease in which the
brain becomes softer . . . as it were, dissolves."

"Is it curable?"

"Yes, if the disease is not neglected. Cold douches, blisters. . . .
Something internal, too."

"Oh! . . . Well, you see my position; I can't live with her: it is
more than I can do. While I'm with you I can be philosophical about
it and smile, but at home I lose heart completely; I am so utterly
miserable, that if I were told, for instance, that I should have
to live another month with her, I should blow out my brains. At the
same time, parting with her is out of the question. She has no
friends or relations; she cannot work, and neither she nor I have
any money. . . . What could become of her? To whom could she go?
There is nothing one can think of. . . . Come, tell me, what am I
to do?"

"H'm! . . ." growled Samoylenko, not knowing what to answer. "Does
she love you?"

"Yes, she loves me in so far as at her age and with her temperament
she wants a man. It would be as difficult for her to do without me
as to do without her powder or her curl-papers. I am for her an
indispensable, integral part of her boudoir."

Samoylenko was embarrassed.

"You are out of humour to-day, Vanya," he said. "You must have had
a bad night."

"Yes, I slept badly. . . . Altogether, I feel horribly out of sorts,
brother. My head feels empty; there's a sinking at my heart, a
weakness. . . . I must run away."

"Run where?"

"There, to the North. To the pines and the mushrooms, to people and
ideas. . . . I'd give half my life to bathe now in some little
stream in the province of Moscow or Tula; to feel chilly, you know,
and then to stroll for three hours even with the feeblest student,
and to talk and talk endlessly. . . . And the scent of the hay! Do
you remember it? And in the evening, when one walks in the garden,
sounds of the piano float from the house; one hears the train
passing. . . ."

Laevsky laughed with pleasure; tears came into his eyes, and to
cover them, without getting up, he stretched across the next table
for the matches.

"I have not been in Russia for eighteen years," said Samoylenko.
"I've forgotten what it is like. To my mind, there is not a country
more splendid than the Caucasus."

"Vereshtchagin has a picture in which some men condemned to death
are languishing at the bottom of a very deep well. Your magnificent
Caucasus strikes me as just like that well. If I were offered the
choice of a chimney-sweep in Petersburg or a prince in the Caucasus,
I should choose the job of chimney-sweep."

Laevsky grew pensive. Looking at his stooping figure, at his eyes
fixed dreamily at one spot, at his pale, perspiring face and sunken
temples, at his bitten nails, at the slipper which had dropped off
his heel, displaying a badly darned sock, Samoylenko was moved to
pity, and probably because Laevsky reminded him of a helpless child,
he asked:

"Is your mother living?"

"Yes, but we are on bad terms. She could not forgive me for this
affair."

Samoylenko was fond of his friend. He looked upon Laevsky as a
good-natured fellow, a student, a man with no nonsense about him,
with whom one could drink, and laugh, and talk without reserve.
What he understood in him he disliked extremely. Laevsky drank a
great deal and at unsuitable times; he played cards, despised his
work, lived beyond his means, frequently made use of unseemly
expressions in conversation, walked about the streets in his slippers,
and quarrelled with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna before other people--and
Samoylenko did not like this. But the fact that Laevsky had once
been a student in the Faculty of Arts, subscribed to two fat reviews,
often talked so cleverly that only a few people understood him, was
living with a well-educated woman--all this Samoylenko did not
understand, and he liked this and respected Laevsky, thinking him
superior to himself.

"There is another point," said Laevsky, shaking his head. "Only it
is between ourselves. I'm concealing it from Nadyezhda Fyodorovna
for the time. . . . Don't let it out before her. . . . I got a
letter the day before yesterday, telling me that her husband has
died from softening of the brain."

"The Kingdom of Heaven be his!" sighed Samoylenko. "Why are you
concealing it from her?"

"To show her that letter would be equivalent to 'Come to church to
be married.' And we should first have to make our relations clear.
When she understands that we can't go on living together, I will
show her the letter. Then there will be no danger in it."

"Do you know what, Vanya," said Samoylenko, and a sad and imploring
expression came into his face, as though he were going to ask him
about something very touching and were afraid of being refused.
"Marry her, my dear boy!"

"Why?"

"Do your duty to that splendid woman! Her husband is dead, and so
Providence itself shows you what to do!"

"But do understand, you queer fellow, that it is impossible. To
marry without love is as base and unworthy of a man as to perform
mass without believing in it."

"But it's your duty to."

"Why is it my duty?" Laevsky asked irritably.

"Because you took her away from her husband and made yourself
responsible for her."

"But now I tell you in plain Russian, I don't love her!"

"Well, if you've no love, show her proper respect, consider her
wishes. . . ."

"'Show her respect, consider her wishes,'" Laevsky mimicked him.
"As though she were some Mother Superior! . . . You are a poor
psychologist and physiologist if you think that living with a woman
one can get off with nothing but respect and consideration. What a
woman thinks most of is her bedroom."

"Vanya, Vanya!" said Samoylenko, overcome with confusion.

"You are an elderly child, a theorist, while I am an old man in
spite of my years, and practical, and we shall never understand one
another. We had better drop this conversation. Mustapha!" Laevsky
shouted to the waiter. "What's our bill?"

"No, no . . ." the doctor cried in dismay, clutching Laevsky's arm.
"It is for me to pay. I ordered it. Make it out to me," he cried
to Mustapha.

The friends got up and walked in silence along the sea-front. When
they reached the boulevard, they stopped and shook hands at parting.

"You are awfully spoilt, my friend!" Samoylenko sighed. "Fate has
sent you a young, beautiful, cultured woman, and you refuse the
gift, while if God were to give me a crooked old woman, how pleased
I should be if only she were kind and affectionate! I would live
with her in my vineyard and . . ."

Samoylenko caught himself up and said:

"And she might get the samovar ready for me there, the old hag."

After parting with Laevsky he walked along the boulevard. When,
bulky and majestic, with a stern expression on his face, he walked
along the boulevard in his snow-white tunic and superbly polished
boots, squaring his chest, decorated with the Vladimir cross on a
ribbon, he was very much pleased with himself, and it seemed as
though the whole world were looking at him with pleasure. Without
turning his head, he looked to each side and thought that the
boulevard was extremely well laid out; that the young cypress-trees,
the eucalyptuses, and the ugly, anemic palm-trees were very handsome
and would in time give abundant shade; that the Circassians were
an honest and hospitable people.

"It's strange that Laevsky does not like the Caucasus," he thought,
"very strange."

Five soldiers, carrying rifles, met him and saluted him. On the
right side of the boulevard the wife of a local official was walking
along the pavement with her son, a schoolboy.

"Good-morning, Marya Konstantinovna," Samoylenko shouted to her
with a pleasant smile. "Have you been to bathe? Ha, ha, ha! . . .
My respects to Nikodim Alexandritch!"

And he went on, still smiling pleasantly, but seeing an assistant
of the military hospital coming towards him, he suddenly frowned,
stopped him, and asked:

"Is there any one in the hospital?"

"No one, Your Excellency."

"Eh?"

"No one, Your Excellency."

"Very well, run along. . . ."

Swaying majestically, he made for the lemonade stall, where sat a
full-bosomed old Jewess, who gave herself out to be a Georgian, and
said to her as loudly as though he were giving the word of command
to a regiment:

"Be so good as to give me some soda-water!"

II

Laevsky's not loving Nadyezhda Fyodorovna showed itself chiefly in
the fact that everything she said or did seemed to him a lie, or
equivalent to a lie, and everything he read against women and love
seemed to him to apply perfectly to himself, to Nadyezhda Fyodorovna
and her husband. When he returned home, she was sitting at the
window, dressed and with her hair done, and with a preoccupied face
was drinking coffee and turning over the leaves of a fat magazine;
and he thought the drinking of coffee was not such a remarkable
event that she need put on a preoccupied expression over it, and
that she had been wasting her time doing her hair in a fashionable
style, as there was no one here to attract and no need to be
attractive. And in the magazine he saw nothing but falsity. He
thought she had dressed and done her hair so as to look handsomer,
and was reading in order to seem clever.

"Will it be all right for me to go to bathe to-day?" she said.

"Why? There won't be an earthquake whether you go or not, I
suppose . . . ."

"No, I only ask in case the doctor should be vexed."

"Well, ask the doctor, then; I'm not a doctor."

On this occasion what displeased Laevsky most in Nadyezhda Fyodorovna
was her white open neck and the little curls at the back of her
head. And he remembered that when Anna Karenin got tired of her
husband, what she disliked most of all was his ears, and thought:
"How true it is, how true!"

Feeling weak and as though his head were perfectly empty, he went
into his study, lay down on his sofa, and covered his face with a
handkerchief that he might not be bothered by the flies. Despondent
and oppressive thoughts always about the same thing trailed slowly
across his brain like a long string of waggons on a gloomy autumn
evening, and he sank into a state of drowsy oppression. It seemed
to him that he had wronged Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and her husband,
and that it was through his fault that her husband had died. It
seemed to him that he had sinned against his own life, which he had
ruined, against the world of lofty ideas, of learning, and of work,
and he conceived that wonderful world as real and possible, not on
this sea-front with hungry Turks and lazy mountaineers sauntering
upon it, but there in the North, where there were operas, theatres,
newspapers, and all kinds of intellectual activity. One could only
there--not here--be honest, intelligent, lofty, and pure. He
accused himself of having no ideal, no guiding principle in life,
though he had a dim understanding now what it meant. Two years
before, when he fell in love with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, it seemed
to him that he had only to go with her as his wife to the Caucasus,
and he would be saved from vulgarity and emptiness; in the same way
now, he was convinced that he had only to part from Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna and to go to Petersburg, and he would get everything he
wanted.

"Run away," he muttered to himself, sitting up and biting his nails.
"Run away!"

He pictured in his imagination how he would go aboard the steamer
and then would have some lunch, would drink some cold beer, would
talk on deck with ladies, then would get into the train at Sevastopol
and set off. Hurrah for freedom! One station after another would
flash by, the air would keep growing colder and keener, then the
birches and the fir-trees, then Kursk, Moscow. . . . In the restaurants
cabbage soup, mutton with kasha, sturgeon, beer, no more Asiaticism,
but Russia, real Russia. The passengers in the train would talk
about trade, new singers, the Franco-Russian _entente_; on all sides
there would be the feeling of keen, cultured, intellectual, eager
life. . . . Hasten on, on! At last Nevsky Prospect, and Great
Morskaya Street, and then Kovensky Place, where he used to live at
one time when he was a student, the dear grey sky, the drizzling
rain, the drenched cabmen. . . .

"Ivan Andreitch!" some one called from the next room. "Are you at
home?"

"I'm here," Laevsky responded. "What do you want?"

"Papers."

Laevsky got up languidly, feeling giddy, walked into the other room,
yawning and shuffling with his slippers. There, at the open window
that looked into the street, stood one of his young fellow-clerks,
laying out some government documents on the window-sill.

"One minute, my dear fellow," Laevsky said softly, and he went to
look for the ink; returning to the window, he signed the papers
without looking at them, and said: "It's hot!"

"Yes. Are you coming to-day?"

"I don't think so. . . . I'm not quite well. Tell Sheshkovsky that
I will come and see him after dinner."

The clerk went away. Laevsky lay down on his sofa again and began
thinking:

"And so I must weigh all the circumstances and reflect on them.
Before I go away from here I ought to pay up my debts. I owe about
two thousand roubles. I have no money. . . . Of course, that's not
important; I shall pay part now, somehow, and I shall send the rest,
later, from Petersburg. The chief point is Nadyezhda Fyodorovna. . . .
First of all we must define our relations. . . . Yes."

A little later he was considering whether it would not be better
to go to Samoylenko for advice.

"I might go," he thought, "but what use would there be in it? I
shall only say something inappropriate about boudoirs, about women,
about what is honest or dishonest. What's the use of talking about
what is honest or dishonest, if I must make haste to save my life,
if I am suffocating in this cursed slavery and am killing myself?
. . . One must realise at last that to go on leading the life I do
is something so base and so cruel that everything else seems petty
and trivial beside it. To run away," he muttered, sitting down, "to
run away."

The deserted seashore, the insatiable heat, and the monotony of the
smoky lilac mountains, ever the same and silent, everlastingly
solitary, overwhelmed him with depression, and, as it were, made
him drowsy and sapped his energy. He was perhaps very clever,
talented, remarkably honest; perhaps if the sea and the mountains
had not closed him in on all sides, he might have become an excellent
Zemstvo leader, a statesman, an orator, a political writer, a saint.
Who knows? If so, was it not stupid to argue whether it were honest
or dishonest when a gifted and useful man--an artist or musician,
for instance--to escape from prison, breaks a wall and deceives
his jailers? Anything is honest when a man is in such a position.

At two o'clock Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna sat down to dinner.
When the cook gave them rice and tomato soup, Laevsky said:

"The same thing every day. Why not have cabbage soup?"

"There are no cabbages."

"It's strange. Samoylenko has cabbage soup and Marya Konstantinovna
has cabbage soup, and only I am obliged to eat this mawkish mess.
We can't go on like this, darling."

As is common with the vast majority of husbands and wives, not a
single dinner had in earlier days passed without scenes and
fault-finding between Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and Laevsky; but ever
since Laevsky had made up his mind that he did not love her, he had
tried to give way to Nadyezhda Fyodorovna in everything, spoke to
her gently and politely, smiled, and called her "darling."

"This soup tastes like liquorice," he said, smiling; he made an
effort to control himself and seem amiable, but could not refrain
from saying: "Nobody looks after the housekeeping. . . . If you are
too ill or busy with reading, let me look after the cooking."

In earlier days she would have said to him, "Do by all means," or,
"I see you want to turn me into a cook"; but now she only looked
at him timidly and flushed crimson.

"Well, how do you feel to-day?" he asked kindly.

"I am all right to-day. There is nothing but a little weakness."

"You must take care of yourself, darling. I am awfully anxious about
you."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna was ill in some way. Samoylenko said she had
intermittent fever, and gave her quinine; the other doctor,
Ustimovitch, a tall, lean, unsociable man, who used to sit at home
in the daytime, and in the evenings walk slowly up and down on the
sea-front coughing, with his hands folded behind him and a cane
stretched along his back, was of opinion that she had a female
complaint, and prescribed warm compresses. In old days, when Laevsky
loved her, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's illness had excited his pity and
terror; now he saw falsity even in her illness. Her yellow, sleepy
face, her lustreless eyes, her apathetic expression, and the yawning
that always followed her attacks of fever, and the fact that during
them she lay under a shawl and looked more like a boy than a woman,
and that it was close and stuffy in her room--all this, in his
opinion, destroyed the illusion and was an argument against love
and marriage.

The next dish given him was spinach with hard-boiled eggs, while
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, as an invalid, had jelly and milk. When with
a preoccupied face she touched the jelly with a spoon and then began
languidly eating it, sipping milk, and he heard her swallowing, he
was possessed by such an overwhelming aversion that it made his
head tingle. He recognised that such a feeling would be an insult
even to a dog, but he was angry, not with himself but with Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna, for arousing such a feeling, and he understood why
lovers sometimes murder their mistresses. He would not murder her,
of course, but if he had been on a jury now, he would have acquitted
the murderer.

"Merci, darling," he said after dinner, and kissed Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna on the forehead.

Going back into his study, he spent five minutes in walking to and
fro, looking at his boots; then he sat down on his sofa and muttered:

"Run away, run away! We must define the position and run away!"

He lay down on the sofa and recalled again that Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's
husband had died, perhaps, by his fault.

"To blame a man for loving a woman, or ceasing to love a woman, is
stupid," he persuaded himself, lying down and raising his legs in
order to put on his high boots. "Love and hatred are not under our
control. As for her husband, maybe I was in an indirect way one of
the causes of his death; but again, is it my fault that I fell in
love with his wife and she with me?"

Then he got up, and finding his cap, set off to the lodgings of his
colleague, Sheshkovsky, where the Government clerks met every day
to play _vint_ and drink beer.

"My indecision reminds me of Hamlet," thought Laevsky on the way.
"How truly Shakespeare describes it! Ah, how truly!"

III

For the sake of sociability and from sympathy for the hard plight
of newcomers without families, who, as there was not an hotel in
the town, had nowhere to dine, Dr. Samoylenko kept a sort of table
d'hote. At this time there were only two men who habitually dined
with him: a young zoologist called Von Koren, who had come for the
summer to the Black Sea to study the embryology of the medusa, and
a deacon called Pobyedov, who had only just left the seminary and
been sent to the town to take the duty of the old deacon who had
gone away for a cure. Each of them paid twelve roubles a month for
their dinner and supper, and Samoylenko made them promise to turn
up at two o'clock punctually.

Von Koren was usually the first to appear. He sat down in the
drawing-room in silence, and taking an album from the table, began
attentively scrutinising the faded photographs of unknown men in
full trousers and top-hats, and ladies in crinolines and caps.
Samoylenko only remembered a few of them by name, and of those whom
he had forgotten he said with a sigh: "A very fine fellow, remarkably
intelligent!" When he had finished with the album, Von Koren took
a pistol from the whatnot, and screwing up his left eye, took
deliberate aim at the portrait of Prince Vorontsov, or stood still
at the looking-glass and gazed a long time at his swarthy face, his
big forehead, and his black hair, which curled like a negro's, and
his shirt of dull-coloured cotton with big flowers on it like a
Persian rug, and the broad leather belt he wore instead of a
waistcoat. The contemplation of his own image seemed to afford him
almost more satisfaction than looking at photographs or playing
with the pistols. He was very well satisfied with his face, and his
becomingly clipped beard, and the broad shoulders, which were
unmistakable evidence of his excellent health and physical strength.
He was satisfied, too, with his stylish get-up, from the cravat,
which matched the colour of his shirt, down to his brown boots.

While he was looking at the album and standing before the glass,
at that moment, in the kitchen and in the passage near, Samoylenko,
without his coat and waistcoat, with his neck bare, excited and
bathed in perspiration, was bustling about the tables, mixing the
salad, or making some sauce, or preparing meat, cucumbers, and onion
for the cold soup, while he glared fiercely at the orderly who was
helping him, and brandished first a knife and then a spoon at him.

"Give me the vinegar!" he said. "That's not the vinegar--it's the
salad oil!" he shouted, stamping. "Where are you off to, you brute?"

"To get the butter, Your Excellency," answered the flustered orderly
in a cracked voice.

"Make haste; it's in the cupboard! And tell Daria to put some fennel
in the jar with the cucumbers! Fennel! Cover the cream up, gaping
laggard, or the flies will get into it!"

And the whole house seemed resounding with his shouts. When it was
ten or fifteen minutes to two the deacon would come in; he was a
lanky young man of twenty-two, with long hair, with no beard and a
hardly perceptible moustache. Going into the drawing-room, he crossed
himself before the ikon, smiled, and held out his hand to Von Koren.

"Good-morning," the zoologist said coldly. "Where have you been?"

"I've been catching sea-gudgeon in the harbour."

"Oh, of course. . . . Evidently, deacon, you will never be busy
with work."

"Why not? Work is not like a bear; it doesn't run off into the
woods," said the deacon, smiling and thrusting his hands into the
very deep pockets of his white cassock.

"There's no one to whip you!" sighed the zoologist.

Another fifteen or twenty minutes passed and they were not called
to dinner, and they could still hear the orderly running into the
kitchen and back again, noisily treading with his boots, and
Samoylenko shouting:

"Put it on the table! Where are your wits? Wash it first."

The famished deacon and Von Koren began tapping on the floor with
their heels, expressing in this way their impatience like the
audience at a theatre. At last the door opened and the harassed
orderly announced that dinner was ready! In the dining-room they
were met by Samoylenko, crimson in the face, wrathful, perspiring
from the heat of the kitchen; he looked at them furiously, and with
an expression of horror, took the lid off the soup tureen and helped
each of them to a plateful; and only when he was convinced that
they were eating it with relish and liked it, he gave a sigh of
relief and settled himself in his deep arm-chair. His face looked
blissful and his eyes grew moist. . . . He deliberately poured
himself out a glass of vodka and said:

"To the health of the younger generation."

After his conversation with Laevsky, from early morning till dinner
Samoylenko had been conscious of a load at his heart, although he
was in the best of humours; he felt sorry for Laevsky and wanted
to help him. After drinking a glass of vodka before the soup, he
heaved a sigh and said:

"I saw Vanya Laevsky to-day. He is having a hard time of it, poor
fellow! The material side of life is not encouraging for him, and
the worst of it is all this psychology is too much for him. I'm
sorry for the lad."

"Well, that is a person I am not sorry for," said Von Koren. "If
that charming individual were drowning, I would push him under with
a stick and say, 'Drown, brother, drown away.' . . ."

"That's untrue. You wouldn't do it."

"Why do you think that?" The zoologist shrugged his shoulders. "I'm
just as capable of a good action as you are."

"Is drowning a man a good action?" asked the deacon, and he laughed.

"Laevsky? Yes."

"I think there is something amiss with the soup . . ." said Samoylenko,
anxious to change the conversation.

"Laevsky is absolutely pernicious and is as dangerous to society
as the cholera microbe," Von Koren went on. "To drown him would be
a service."

"It does not do you credit to talk like that about your neighbour.
Tell us: what do you hate him for?"

"Don't talk nonsense, doctor. To hate and despise a microbe is
stupid, but to look upon everybody one meets without distinction
as one's neighbour, whatever happens--thanks very much, that is
equivalent to giving up criticism, renouncing a straightforward
attitude to people, washing one's hands of responsibility, in fact!
I consider your Laevsky a blackguard; I do not conceal it, and I
am perfectly conscientious in treating him as such. Well, you look
upon him as your neighbour--and you may kiss him if you like: you
look upon him as your neighbour, and that means that your attitude
to him is the same as to me and to the deacon; that is no attitude
at all. You are equally indifferent to all."

"To call a man a blackguard!" muttered Samoylenko, frowning with
distaste--"that is so wrong that I can't find words for it!"

"People are judged by their actions," Von Koren continued. "Now you
decide, deacon. . . . I am going to talk to you, deacon. Mr. Laevsky's
career lies open before you, like a long Chinese puzzle, and you
can read it from beginning to end. What has he been doing these two
years that he has been living here? We will reckon his doings on
our fingers. First, he has taught the inhabitants of the town to
play _vint_: two years ago that game was unknown here; now they all
play it from morning till late at night, even the women and the
boys. Secondly, he has taught the residents to drink beer, which
was not known here either; the inhabitants are indebted to him for
the knowledge of various sorts of spirits, so that now they can
distinguish Kospelov's vodka from Smirnov's No. 21, blindfold.
Thirdly, in former days, people here made love to other men's wives
in secret, from the same motives as thieves steal in secret and not
openly; adultery was considered something they were ashamed to make
a public display of. Laevsky has come as a pioneer in that line;
he lives with another man's wife openly. . . . Fourthly . . ."

Von Koren hurriedly ate up his soup and gave his plate to the
orderly.

"I understood Laevsky from the first month of our acquaintance,"
he went on, addressing the deacon. "We arrived here at the same
time. Men like him are very fond of friendship, intimacy, solidarity,
and all the rest of it, because they always want company for _vint_,
drinking, and eating; besides, they are talkative and must have
listeners. We made friends--that is, he turned up every day,
hindered me working, and indulged in confidences in regard to his
mistress. From the first he struck me by his exceptional falsity,
which simply made me sick. As a friend I pitched into him, asking
him why he drank too much, why he lived beyond his means and got
into debt, why he did nothing and read nothing, why he had so little
culture and so little knowledge; and in answer to all my questions
he used to smile bitterly, sigh, and say: 'I am a failure, a
superfluous man'; or: 'What do you expect, my dear fellow, from us,
the debris of the serf-owning class?' or: 'We are degenerate. . . .'
Or he would begin a long rigmarole about Onyegin, Petchorin,
Byron's Cain, and Bazarov, of whom he would say: 'They are our
fathers in flesh and in spirit.' So we are to understand that it
was not his fault that Government envelopes lay unopened in his
office for weeks together, and that he drank and taught others to
drink, but Onyegin, Petchorin, and Turgenev, who had invented the
failure and the superfluous man, were responsible for it. The cause
of his extreme dissoluteness and unseemliness lies, do you see, not
in himself, but somewhere outside in space. And so--an ingenious
idea!--it is not only he who is dissolute, false, and disgusting,
but we . . . 'we men of the eighties,' 'we the spiritless, nervous
offspring of the serf-owning class'; 'civilisation has crippled us'
. . . in fact, we are to understand that such a great man as Laevsky
is great even in his fall: that his dissoluteness, his lack of
culture and of moral purity, is a phenomenon of natural history,
sanctified by inevitability; that the causes of it are world-wide,
elemental; and that we ought to hang up a lamp before Laevsky, since
he is the fated victim of the age, of influences, of heredity, and
so on. All the officials and their ladies were in ecstasies when
they listened to him, and I could not make out for a long time what
sort of man I had to deal with, a cynic or a clever rogue. Such
types as he, on the surface intellectual with a smattering of
education and a great deal of talk about their own nobility, are
very clever in posing as exceptionally complex natures."

"Hold your tongue!" Samoylenko flared up. "I will not allow a
splendid fellow to be spoken ill of in my presence!"

"Don't interrupt, Alexandr Daviditch," said Von Koren coldly; "I
am just finishing. Laevsky is by no means a complex organism. Here
is his moral skeleton: in the morning, slippers, a bathe, and coffee;
then till dinner-time, slippers, a constitutional, and conversation;
at two o'clock slippers, dinner, and wine; at five o'clock a bathe,
tea and wine, then _vint_ and lying; at ten o'clock supper and wine;
and after midnight sleep and _la femme_. His existence is confined
within this narrow programme like an egg within its shell. Whether
he walks or sits, is angry, writes, rejoices, it may all be reduced
to wine, cards, slippers, and women. Woman plays a fatal, overwhelming
part in his life. He tells us himself that at thirteen he was in
love; that when he was a student in his first year he was living
with a lady who had a good influence over him, and to whom he was
indebted for his musical education. In his second year he bought a
prostitute from a brothel and raised her to his level--that is,
took her as his kept mistress, and she lived with him for six months
and then ran away back to the brothel-keeper, and her flight caused
him much spiritual suffering. Alas! his sufferings were so great
that he had to leave the university and spend two years at home
doing nothing. But this was all for the best. At home he made friends
with a widow who advised him to leave the Faculty of Jurisprudence
and go into the Faculty of Arts. And so he did. When he had taken
his degree, he fell passionately in love with his present . . .
what's her name? . . . married lady, and was obliged to flee with
her here to the Caucasus for the sake of his ideals, he would have
us believe, seeing that . . . to-morrow, if not to-day, he will be
tired of her and flee back again to Petersburg, and that, too, will
be for the sake of his ideals."

"How do you know?" growled Samoylenko, looking angrily at the
zoologist. "You had better eat your dinner."

The next course consisted of boiled mullet with Polish sauce.
Samoylenko helped each of his companions to a whole mullet and
poured out the sauce with his own hand. Two minutes passed in
silence.

"Woman plays an essential part in the life of every man," said the
deacon. "You can't help that."

"Yes, but to what degree? For each of us woman means mother, sister,
wife, friend. To Laevsky she is everything, and at the same time
nothing but a mistress. She--that is, cohabitation with her--
is the happiness and object of his life; he is gay, sad, bored,
disenchanted--on account of woman; his life grows disagreeable
--woman is to blame; the dawn of a new life begins to glow, ideals
turn up--and again look for the woman. . . . He only derives
enjoyment from books and pictures in which there is woman. Our age
is, to his thinking, poor and inferior to the forties and the sixties
only because we do not know how to abandon ourselves obviously to
the passion and ecstasy of love. These voluptuaries must have in
their brains a special growth of the nature of sarcoma, which stifles
the brain and directs their whole psychology. Watch Laevsky when
he is sitting anywhere in company. You notice: when one raises any
general question in his presence, for instance, about the cell or
instinct, he sits apart, and neither speaks nor listens; he looks
languid and disillusioned; nothing has any interest for him,
everything is vulgar and trivial. But as soon as you speak of male
and female--for instance, of the fact that the female spider,
after fertilisation, devours the male--his eyes glow with curiosity,
his face brightens, and the man revives, in fact. All his thoughts,
however noble, lofty, or neutral they may be, they all have one
point of resemblance. You walk along the street with him and meet
a donkey, for instance. . . . 'Tell me, please,' he asks, 'what
would happen if you mated a donkey with a camel?' And his dreams!
Has he told you of his dreams? It is magnificent! First, he dreams
that he is married to the moon, then that he is summoned before the
police and ordered to live with a guitar . . ."

The deacon burst into resounding laughter; Samoylenko frowned and
wrinkled up his face angrily so as not to laugh, but could not
restrain himself, and laughed.

"And it's all nonsense!" he said, wiping his tears. "Yes, by Jove,
it's nonsense!"

IV

The deacon was very easily amused, and laughed at every trifle till
he got a stitch in his side, till he was helpless. It seemed as
though he only liked to be in people's company because there was a
ridiculous side to them, and because they might be given ridiculous
nicknames. He had nicknamed Samoylenko "the tarantula," his orderly
"the drake," and was in ecstasies when on one occasion Von Koren
spoke of Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna as "Japanese monkeys."
He watched people's faces greedily, listened without blinking, and
it could be seen that his eyes filled with laughter and his face
was tense with expectation of the moment when he could let himself
go and burst into laughter.

"He is a corrupt and depraved type," the zoologist continued, while
the deacon kept his eyes riveted on his face, expecting he would
say something funny. "It is not often one can meet with such a
nonentity. In body he is inert, feeble, prematurely old, while in
intellect he differs in no respect from a fat shopkeeper's wife who
does nothing but eat, drink, and sleep on a feather-bed, and who
keeps her coachman as a lover."

The deacon began guffawing again.

"Don't laugh, deacon," said Von Koren. "It grows stupid, at last.
I should not have paid attention to his insignificance," he went
on, after waiting till the deacon had left off laughing; "I should
have passed him by if he were not so noxious and dangerous. His
noxiousness lies first of all in the fact that he has great success
with women, and so threatens to leave descendants--that is, to
present the world with a dozen Laevskys as feeble and as depraved
as himself. Secondly, he is in the highest degree contaminating. I
have spoken to you already of _vint_ and beer. In another year or
two he will dominate the whole Caucasian coast. You know how the
mass, especially its middle stratum, believe in intellectuality,
in a university education, in gentlemanly manners, and in literary
language. Whatever filthy thing he did, they would all believe that
it was as it should be, since he is an intellectual man, of liberal
ideas and university education. What is more, he is a failure, a
superfluous man, a neurasthenic, a victim of the age, and that means
he can do anything. He is a charming fellow, a regular good sort,
he is so genuinely indulgent to human weaknesses; he is compliant,
accommodating, easy and not proud; one can drink with him and gossip
and talk evil of people. . . . The masses, always inclined to
anthropomorphism in religion and morals, like best of all the little
gods who have the same weaknesses as themselves. Only think what a
wide field he has for contamination! Besides, he is not a bad actor
and is a clever hypocrite, and knows very well how to twist things
round. Only take his little shifts and dodges, his attitude to
civilisation, for instance. He has scarcely sniffed at civilisation,
yet: 'Ah, how we have been crippled by civilisation! Ah, how I envy
those savages, those children of nature, who know nothing of
civilisation!' We are to understand, you see, that at one time, in
ancient days, he has been devoted to civilisation with his whole
soul, has served it, has sounded it to its depths, but it has
exhausted him, disillusioned him, deceived him; he is a Faust, do
you see?--a second Tolstoy. . . . As for Schopenhauer and Spencer,
he treats them like small boys and slaps them on the shoulder in a
fatherly way: 'Well, what do you say, old Spencer?' He has not read
Spencer, of course, but how charming he is when with light, careless
irony he says of his lady friend: 'She has read Spencer!' And they
all listen to him, and no one cares to understand that this charlatan
has not the right to kiss the sole of Spencer's foot, let alone
speaking about him in that tone! Sapping the foundations of
civilisation, of authority, of other people's altars, spattering
them with filth, winking jocosely at them only to justify and conceal
one's own rottenness and moral poverty is only possible for a very
vain, base, and nasty creature."

"I don't know what it is you expect of him, Kolya," said Samoylenko,
looking at the zoologist, not with anger now, but with a guilty
air. "He is a man the same as every one else. Of course, he has his
weaknesses, but he is abreast of modern ideas, is in the service,
is of use to his country. Ten years ago there was an old fellow
serving as agent here, a man of the greatest intelligence . . . and
he used to say . . ."

"Nonsense, nonsense!" the zoologist interrupted. "You say he is in
the service; but how does he serve? Do you mean to tell me that
things have been done better because he is here, and the officials
are more punctual, honest, and civil? On the contrary, he has only
sanctioned their slackness by his prestige as an intellectual
university man. He is only punctual on the 20th of the month, when
he gets his salary; on the other days he lounges about at home in
slippers and tries to look as if he were doing the Government a
great service by living in the Caucasus. No, Alexandr Daviditch,
don't stick up for him. You are insincere from beginning to end.
If you really loved him and considered him your neighbour, you would
above all not be indifferent to his weaknesses, you would not be
indulgent to them, but for his own sake would try to make him
innocuous."

"That is?"

"Innocuous. Since he is incorrigible, he can only be made innocuous
in one way. . . ." Von Koren passed his finger round his throat.
"Or he might be drowned . . .", he added. "In the interests of
humanity and in their own interests, such people ought to be
destroyed. They certainly ought."

"What are you saying?" muttered Samoylenko, getting up and looking
with amazement at the zoologist's calm, cold face. "Deacon, what
is he saying? Why--are you in your senses?"

"I don't insist on the death penalty," said Von Koren. "If it is
proved that it is pernicious, devise something else. If we can't
destroy Laevsky, why then, isolate him, make him harmless, send him
to hard labour."

"What are you saying!" said Samoylenko in horror. "With pepper,
with pepper," he cried in a voice of despair, seeing that the deacon
was eating stuffed aubergines without pepper. "You with your great
intellect, what are you saying! Send our friend, a proud intellectual
man, to penal servitude!"

"Well, if he is proud and tries to resist, put him in fetters!"

Samoylenko could not utter a word, and only twiddled his fingers;
the deacon looked at his flabbergasted and really absurd face, and
laughed.

"Let us leave off talking of that," said the zoologist. "Only
remember one thing, Alexandr Daviditch: primitive man was preserved
from such as Laevsky by the struggle for existence and by natural
selection; now our civilisation has considerably weakened the
struggle and the selection, and we ought to look after the destruction
of the rotten and worthless for ourselves; otherwise, when the
Laevskys multiply, civilisation will perish and mankind will
degenerate utterly. It will be our fault."

"If it depends on drowning and hanging," said Samoylenko, "damnation
take your civilisation, damnation take your humanity! Damnation
take it! I tell you what: you are a very learned and intelligent
man and the pride of your country, but the Germans have ruined you.
Yes, the Germans! The Germans!"

Since Samoylenko had left Dorpat, where he had studied medicine,
he had rarely seen a German and had not read a single German book,
but, in his opinion, every harmful idea in politics or science was
due to the Germans. Where he had got this notion he could not have
said himself, but he held it firmly.

"Yes, the Germans!" he repeated once more. "Come and have some tea."

All three stood up, and putting on their hats, went out into the
little garden, and sat there under the shade of the light green
maples, the pear-trees, and a chestnut-tree. The zoologist and the
deacon sat on a bench by the table, while Samoylenko sank into a
deep wicker chair with a sloping back. The orderly handed them tea,
jam, and a bottle of syrup.

It was very hot, thirty degrees Reaumur in the shade. The sultry
air was stagnant and motionless, and a long spider-web, stretching
from the chestnut-tree to the ground, hung limply and did not stir.

The deacon took up the guitar, which was constantly lying on the
ground near the table, tuned it, and began singing softly in a thin
voice:

"'Gathered round the tavern were the seminary lads,'"

but instantly subsided, overcome by the heat, mopped his brow and
glanced upwards at the blazing blue sky. Samoylenko grew drowsy;
the sultry heat, the stillness and the delicious after-dinner
languor, which quickly pervaded all his limbs, made him feel heavy
and sleepy; his arms dropped at his sides, his eyes grew small, his
head sank on his breast. He looked with almost tearful tenderness
at Von Koren and the deacon, and muttered:

"The younger generation. . . A scientific star and a luminary of
the Church. . . . I shouldn't wonder if the long-skirted alleluia
will be shooting up into a bishop; I dare say I may come to kissing
his hand. . . . Well . . . please God. . . ."

Soon a snore was heard. Von Koren and the deacon finished their tea
and went out into the street.

"Are you going to the harbour again to catch sea-gudgeon?" asked
the zoologist.

"No, it's too hot."

"Come and see me. You can pack up a parcel and copy something for
me. By the way, we must have a talk about what you are to do. You
must work, deacon. You can't go on like this."

"Your words are just and logical," said the deacon. "But my laziness
finds an excuse in the circumstances of my present life. You know
yourself that an uncertain position has a great tendency to make
people apathetic. God only knows whether I have been sent here for
a time or permanently. I am living here in uncertainty, while my
wife is vegetating at her father's and is missing me. And I must
confess my brain is melting with the heat."

"That's all nonsense," said the zoologist. "You can get used to the
heat, and you can get used to being without the deaconess. You
mustn't be slack; you must pull yourself together."

V

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna went to bathe in the morning, and her cook,
Olga, followed her with a jug, a copper basin, towels, and a sponge.
In the bay stood two unknown steamers with dirty white funnels,
obviously foreign cargo vessels. Some men dressed in white and
wearing white shoes were walking along the harbour, shouting loudly
in French, and were answered from the steamers. The bells were
ringing briskly in the little church of the town.

"To-day is Sunday!" Nadyezhda Fyodorovna remembered with pleasure.

She felt perfectly well, and was in a gay holiday humour. In a new
loose-fitting dress of coarse thick tussore silk, and a big
wide-brimmed straw hat which was bent down over her ears, so that
her face looked out as though from a basket, she fancied she looked
very charming. She thought that in the whole town there was only
one young, pretty, intellectual woman, and that was herself, and
that she was the only one who knew how to dress herself cheaply,
elegantly, and with taste. That dress, for example, cost only
twenty-two roubles, and yet how charming it was! In the whole town
she was the only one who could be attractive, while there were
numbers of men, so they must all, whether they would or not, be
envious of Laevsky.

She was glad that of late Laevsky had been cold to her, reserved
and polite, and at times even harsh and rude; in the past she had
met all his outbursts, all his contemptuous, cold or strange
incomprehensible glances, with tears, reproaches, and threats to
leave him or to starve herself to death; now she only blushed,
looked guiltily at him, and was glad he was not affectionate to
her. If he had abused her, threatened her, it would have been better
and pleasanter, since she felt hopelessly guilty towards him. She
felt she was to blame, in the first place, for not sympathising
with the dreams of a life of hard work, for the sake of which he
had given up Petersburg and had come here to the Caucasus, and she
was convinced that he had been angry with her of late for precisely
that. When she was travelling to the Caucasus, it seemed that she
would find here on the first day a cosy nook by the sea, a snug
little garden with shade, with birds, with little brooks, where she
could grow flowers and vegetables, rear ducks and hens, entertain
her neighbours, doctor poor peasants and distribute little books
amongst them. It had turned out that the Caucasus was nothing but
bare mountains, forests, and huge valleys, where it took a long
time and a great deal of effort to find anything and settle down;
that there were no neighbours of any sort; that it was very hot and
one might be robbed. Laevsky had been in no hurry to obtain a piece
of land; she was glad of it, and they seemed to be in a tacit compact
never to allude to a life of hard work. He was silent about it, she
thought, because he was angry with her for being silent about it.

In the second place, she had without his knowledge during those two
years bought various trifles to the value of three hundred roubles
at Atchmianov's shop. She had bought the things by degrees, at one
time materials, at another time silk or a parasol, and the debt had
grown imperceptibly.

"I will tell him about it to-day . . .", she used to decide, but
at once reflected that in Laevsky's present mood it would hardly
be convenient to talk to him of debts.

Thirdly, she had on two occasions in Laevsky's absence received a
visit from Kirilin, the police captain: once in the morning when
Laevsky had gone to bathe, and another time at midnight when he was
playing cards. Remembering this, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna flushed
crimson, and looked round at the cook as though she might overhear
her thoughts. The long, insufferably hot, wearisome days, beautiful
languorous evenings and stifling nights, and the whole manner of
living, when from morning to night one is at a loss to fill up the
useless hours, and the persistent thought that she was the prettiest
young woman in the town, and that her youth was passing and being
wasted, and Laevsky himself, though honest and idealistic, always
the same, always lounging about in his slippers, biting his nails,
and wearying her with his caprices, led by degrees to her becoming
possessed by desire, and as though she were mad, she thought of
nothing else day and night. Breathing, looking, walking, she felt
nothing but desire. The sound of the sea told her she must love;
the darkness of evening--the same; the mountains--the same. . . .
And when Kirilin began paying her attentions, she had neither
the power nor the wish to resist, and surrendered to him. . . .

Now the foreign steamers and the men in white reminded her for some
reason of a huge hall; together with the shouts of French she heard
the strains of a waltz, and her bosom heaved with unaccountable
delight. She longed to dance and talk French.

She reflected joyfully that there was nothing terrible about her
infidelity. Her soul had no part in her infidelity; she still loved
Laevsky, and that was proved by the fact that she was jealous of
him, was sorry for him, and missed him when he was away. Kirilin
had turned out to be very mediocre, rather coarse though handsome;
everything was broken off with him already and there would never
be anything more. What had happened was over; it had nothing to do
with any one, and if Laevsky found it out he would not believe in
it.

There was only one bathing-house for ladies on the sea-front; men
bathed under the open sky. Going into the bathing-house, Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna found there an elderly lady, Marya Konstantinovna Bityugov,
and her daughter Katya, a schoolgirl of fifteen; both of them were
sitting on a bench undressing. Marya Konstantinovna was a good-natured,
enthusiastic, and genteel person, who talked in a drawling and
pathetic voice. She had been a governess until she was thirty-two,
and then had married Bityugov, a Government official--a bald
little man with his hair combed on to his temples and with a very
meek disposition. She was still in love with him, was jealous,
blushed at the word "love," and told every one she was very happy.

"My dear," she cried enthusiastically, on seeing Nadyezhda Fyodorovna,
assuming an expression which all her acquaintances called "almond-oily."
"My dear, how delightful that you have come! We'll bathe together
--that's enchanting!"

Olga quickly flung off her dress and chemise, and began undressing
her mistress.

"It's not quite so hot to-day as yesterday?" said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna,
shrinking at the coarse touch of the naked cook. "Yesterday I almost
died of the heat."

"Oh, yes, my dear; I could hardly breathe myself. Would you believe
it? I bathed yesterday three times! Just imagine, my dear, three
times! Nikodim Alexandritch was quite uneasy."

"Is it possible to be so ugly?" thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, looking
at Olga and the official's wife; she glanced at Katya and thought:
"The little girl's not badly made."

"Your Nikodim Alexandritch is very charming!" she said. "I'm simply
in love with him."

"Ha, ha, ha!" cried Marya Konstantinovna, with a forced laugh;
"that's quite enchanting."

Free from her clothes, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna felt a desire to fly.
And it seemed to her that if she were to wave her hands she would
fly upwards. When she was undressed, she noticed that Olga looked
scornfully at her white body. Olga, a young soldier's wife, was
living with her lawful husband, and so considered herself superior
to her mistress. Marya Konstantinovna and Katya were afraid of her,
and did not respect her. This was disagreeable, and to raise herself
in their opinion, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna said:

"At home, in Petersburg, summer villa life is at its height now.
My husband and I have so many friends! We ought to go and see them."

"I believe your husband is an engineer?" said Marya Konstantinovna
timidly.

"I am speaking of Laevsky. He has a great many acquaintances. But
unfortunately his mother is a proud aristocrat, not very
intelligent. . . ."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna threw herself into the water without finishing;
Marya Konstantinovna and Katya made their way in after her.

"There are so many conventional ideas in the world," Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna went on, "and life is not so easy as it seems."

Marya Konstantinovna, who had been a governess in aristocratic
families and who was an authority on social matters, said:

"Oh yes! Would you believe me, my dear, at the Garatynskys' I was
expected to dress for lunch as well as for dinner, so that, like
an actress, I received a special allowance for my wardrobe in
addition to my salary."

She stood between Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and Katya as though to screen
her daughter from the water that washed the former.

Through the open doors looking out to the sea they could see some
one swimming a hundred paces from their bathing-place.

"Mother, it's our Kostya," said Katya.

"Ach, ach!" Marya Konstantinovna cackled in her dismay. "Ach,
Kostya!" she shouted, "Come back! Kostya, come back!"

Kostya, a boy of fourteen, to show off his prowess before his mother
and sister, dived and swam farther, but began to be exhausted and
hurried back, and from his strained and serious face it could be
seen that he could not trust his own strength.

"The trouble one has with these boys, my dear!" said Marya
Konstantinovna, growing calmer. "Before you can turn round, he will
break his neck. Ah, my dear, how sweet it is, and yet at the same
time how difficult, to be a mother! One's afraid of everything."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna put on her straw hat and dashed out into the
open sea. She swam some thirty feet and then turned on her back.
She could see the sea to the horizon, the steamers, the people on
the sea-front, the town; and all this, together with the sultry
heat and the soft, transparent waves, excited her and whispered
that she must live, live. . . . A sailing-boat darted by her rapidly
and vigorously, cleaving the waves and the air; the man sitting at
the helm looked at her, and she liked being looked at. . . .

After bathing, the ladies dressed and went away together.

"I have fever every alternate day, and yet I don't get thin," said
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, licking her lips, which were salt from the
bathe, and responding with a smile to the bows of her acquaintances.
"I've always been plump, and now I believe I'm plumper than ever."

"That, my dear, is constitutional. If, like me, one has no
constitutional tendency to stoutness, no diet is of any use. . . .
But you've wetted your hat, my dear."

"It doesn't matter; it will dry."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna saw again the men in white who were walking
on the sea-front and talking French; and again she felt a sudden
thrill of joy, and had a vague memory of some big hall in which she
had once danced, or of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. And
something at the bottom of her soul dimly and obscurely whispered
to her that she was a pretty, common, miserable, worthless
woman. . . .

Marya Konstantinovna stopped at her gate and asked her to come in
and sit down for a little while.

"Come in, my dear," she said in an imploring voice, and at the same
time she looked at Nadyezhda Fyodorovna with anxiety and hope;
perhaps she would refuse and not come in!

"With pleasure," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, accepting. "You know
how I love being with you!"

And she went into the house. Marya Konstantinovna sat her down and
gave her coffee, regaled her with milk rolls, then showed her
photographs of her former pupils, the Garatynskys, who were by now
married. She showed her, too, the examination reports of Kostya and
Katya. The reports were very good, but to make them seem even better,
she complained, with a sigh, how difficult the lessons at school
were now. . . . She made much of her visitor, and was sorry for
her, though at the same time she was harassed by the thought that
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna might have a corrupting influence on the morals
of Kostya and Katya, and was glad that her Nikodim Alexandritch was
not at home. Seeing that in her opinion all men are fond of "women
like that," Nadyezhda Fyodorovna might have a bad effect on Nikodim
Alexandritch too.

As she talked to her visitor, Marya Konstantinovna kept remembering
that they were to have a picnic that evening, and that Von Koren
had particularly begged her to say nothing about it to the "Japanese
monkeys"--that is, Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna; but she
dropped a word about it unawares, crimsoned, and said in confusion:

"I hope you will come too!"

VI

It was agreed to drive about five miles out of town on the road to
the south, to stop near a _duhan_ at the junction of two streams
--the Black River and the Yellow River--and to cook fish soup.
They started out soon after five. Foremost of the party in a
char-a-banc drove Samoylenko and Laevsky; they were followed by
Marya Konstantinovna, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, Katya and Kostya, in a
coach with three horses, carrying with them the crockery and a
basket with provisions. In the next carriage came the police captain,
Kirilin, and the young Atchmianov, the son of the shopkeeper to
whom Nadyezhda Fyodorovna owed three hundred roubles; opposite them,
huddled up on the little seat with his feet tucked under him, sat
Nikodim Alexandritch, a neat little man with hair combed on to his
temples. Last of all came Von Koren and the deacon; at the deacon's
feet stood a basket of fish.

"R-r-right!" Samoylenko shouted at the top of his voice when he met
a cart or a mountaineer riding on a donkey.

"In two years' time, when I shall have the means and the people
ready, I shall set off on an expedition," Von Koren was telling the
deacon. "I shall go by the sea-coast from Vladivostok to the Behring
Straits, and then from the Straits to the mouth of the Yenisei. We
shall make the map, study the fauna and the flora, and make detailed
geological, anthropological, and ethnographical researches. It
depends upon you to go with me or not."

"It's impossible," said the deacon.

"Why?"

"I'm a man with ties and a family."

"Your wife will let you go; we will provide for her. Better still
if you were to persuade her for the public benefit to go into a
nunnery; that would make it possible for you to become a monk, too,
and join the expedition as a priest. I can arrange it for you."

The deacon was silent.

"Do you know your theology well?" asked the zoologist.

"No, rather badly."

"H'm! . . . I can't give you any advice on that score, because I
don't know much about theology myself. You give me a list of books
you need, and I will send them to you from Petersburg in the winter.
It will be necessary for you to read the notes of religious travellers,
too; among them are some good ethnologists and Oriental scholars.
When you are familiar with their methods, it will be easier for you
to set to work. And you needn't waste your time till you get the
books; come to me, and we will study the compass and go through a
course of meteorology. All that's indispensable."

"To be sure . . ." muttered the deacon, and he laughed. "I was
trying to get a place in Central Russia, and my uncle, the head
priest, promised to help me. If I go with you I shall have troubled
them for nothing."

"I don't understand your hesitation. If you go on being an ordinary
deacon, who is only obliged to hold a service on holidays, and on
the other days can rest from work, you will be exactly the same as
you are now in ten years' time, and will have gained nothing but a
beard and moustache; while on returning from this expedition in ten
years' time you will be a different man, you will be enriched by
the consciousness that something has been done by you."

From the ladies' carriage came shrieks of terror and delight. The
carriages were driving along a road hollowed in a literally overhanging
precipitous cliff, and it seemed to every one that they were galloping
along a shelf on a steep wall, and that in a moment the carriages
would drop into the abyss. On the right stretched the sea; on the
left was a rough brown wall with black blotches and red veins and
with climbing roots; while on the summit stood shaggy fir-trees
bent over, as though looking down in terror and curiosity. A minute
later there were shrieks and laughter again: they had to drive under
a huge overhanging rock.

"I don't know why the devil I'm coming with you," said Laevsky.
"How stupid and vulgar it is! I want to go to the North, to run
away, to escape; but here I am, for some reason, going to this
stupid picnic."

"But look, what a view!" said Samoylenko as the horses turned to
the left, and the valley of the Yellow River came into sight and
the stream itself gleamed in the sunlight, yellow, turbid, frantic.

"I see nothing fine in that, Sasha," answered Laevsky. "To be in
continual ecstasies over nature shows poverty of imagination. In
comparison with what my imagination can give me, all these streams
and rocks are trash, and nothing else."

The carriages now were by the banks of the stream. The high mountain
banks gradually grew closer, the valley shrank together and ended
in a gorge; the rocky mountain round which they were driving had
been piled together by nature out of huge rocks, pressing upon each
other with such terrible weight, that Samoylenko could not help
gasping every time he looked at them. The dark and beautiful mountain
was cleft in places by narrow fissures and gorges from which came
a breath of dewy moisture and mystery; through the gorges could be
seen other mountains, brown, pink, lilac, smoky, or bathed in vivid
sunlight. From time to time as they passed a gorge they caught the
sound of water falling from the heights and splashing on the stones.

"Ach, the damned mountains!" sighed Laevsky. "How sick I am of
them!"

At the place where the Black River falls into the Yellow, and the
water black as ink stains the yellow and struggles with it, stood
the Tatar Kerbalay's _duhan_, with the Russian flag on the roof and
with an inscription written in chalk: "The Pleasant _duhan_." Near
it was a little garden, enclosed in a hurdle fence, with tables and
chairs set out in it, and in the midst of a thicket of wretched
thornbushes stood a single solitary cypress, dark and beautiful.

Kerbalay, a nimble little Tatar in a blue shirt and a white apron,
was standing in the road, and, holding his stomach, he bowed low
to welcome the carriages, and smiled, showing his glistening white
teeth.

"Good-evening, Kerbalay," shouted Samoylenko. "We are driving on a
little further, and you take along the samovar and chairs! Look
sharp!"

Kerbalay nodded his shaven head and muttered something, and only
those sitting in the last carriage could hear: "We've got trout,
your Excellency."

"Bring them, bring them!" said Von Koren.

Five hundred paces from the _duhan_ the carriages stopped. Samoylenko
selected a small meadow round which there were scattered stones
convenient for sitting on, and a fallen tree blown down by the storm
with roots overgrown by moss and dry yellow needles. Here there was
a fragile wooden bridge over the stream, and just opposite on the
other bank there was a little barn for drying maize, standing on
four low piles, and looking like the hut on hen's legs in the fairy
tale; a little ladder sloped from its door.

The first impression in all was a feeling that they would never get
out of that place again. On all sides wherever they looked, the
mountains rose up and towered above them, and the shadows of evening
were stealing rapidly, rapidly from the _duhan_ and dark cypress,
making the narrow winding valley of the Black River narrower and
the mountains higher. They could hear the river murmuring and the
unceasing chirrup of the grasshoppers.

"Enchanting!" said Marya Konstantinovna, heaving deep sighs of
ecstasy. "Children, look how fine! What peace!"

"Yes, it really is fine," assented Laevsky, who liked the view, and
for some reason felt sad as he looked at the sky and then at the
blue smoke rising from the chimney of the _duhan_. "Yes, it is
fine," he repeated.

"Ivan Andreitch, describe this view," Marya Konstantinovna said
tearfully.

"Why?" asked Laevsky. "The impression is better than any description.
The wealth of sights and sounds which every one receives from nature
by direct impression is ranted about by authors in a hideous and
unrecognisable way."

"Really?" Von Koren asked coldly, choosing the biggest stone by the
side of the water, and trying to clamber up and sit upon it. "Really?"
he repeated, looking directly at Laevsky. "What of 'Romeo and
Juliet'? Or, for instance, Pushkin's 'Night in the Ukraine'? Nature
ought to come and bow down at their feet."

"Perhaps," said Laevsky, who was too lazy to think and oppose him.
"Though what is 'Romeo and Juliet' after all?" he added after a
short pause. "The beauty of poetry and holiness of love are simply
the roses under which they try to hide its rottenness. Romeo is
just the same sort of animal as all the rest of us."

"Whatever one talks to you about, you always bring it round to
. . ." Von Koren glanced round at Katya and broke off.

"What do I bring it round to?" asked Laevsky.

"One tells you, for instance, how beautiful a bunch of grapes is,
and you answer: 'Yes, but how ugly it is when it is chewed and
digested in one's stomach!' Why say that? It's not new, and . . .
altogether it is a queer habit."

Laevsky knew that Von Koren did not like him, and so was afraid of
him, and felt in his presence as though every one were constrained
and some one were standing behind his back. He made no answer and
walked away, feeling sorry he had come.

"Gentlemen, quick march for brushwood for the fire!" commanded
Samoylenko.

They all wandered off in different directions, and no one was left
but Kirilin, Atchmianov, and Nikodim Alexandritch. Kerbalay brought
chairs, spread a rug on the ground, and set a few bottles of wine.

The police captain, Kirilin, a tall, good-looking man, who in all
weathers wore his great-coat over his tunic, with his haughty
deportment, stately carriage, and thick, rather hoarse voice, looked
like a young provincial chief of police; his expression was mournful
and sleepy, as though he had just been waked against his will.

"What have you brought this for, you brute?" he asked Kerbalay,
deliberately articulating each word. "I ordered you to give us
_kvarel_, and what have you brought, you ugly Tatar? Eh? What?"

"We have plenty of wine of our own, Yegor Alekseitch," Nikodim
Alexandritch observed, timidly and politely.

"What? But I want us to have my wine, too; I'm taking part in the
picnic and I imagine I have full right to contribute my share. I
im-ma-gine so! Bring ten bottles of _kvarel_."

"Why so many?" asked Nikodim Alexandritch, in wonder, knowing Kirilin
had no money.

"Twenty bottles! Thirty!" shouted Kirilin.

"Never mind, let him," Atchmianov whispered to Nikodim Alexandritch;
"I'll pay."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna was in a light-hearted, mischievous mood; she
wanted to skip and jump, to laugh, to shout, to tease, to flirt.
In her cheap cotton dress with blue pansies on it, in her red shoes
and the same straw hat, she seemed to herself, little, simple,
light, ethereal as a butterfly. She ran over the rickety bridge and
looked for a minute into the water, in order to feel giddy; then,
shrieking and laughing, ran to the other side to the drying-shed,
and she fancied that all the men were admiring her, even Kerbalay.
When in the rapidly falling darkness the trees began to melt into
the mountains and the horses into the carriages, and a light gleamed
in the windows of the _duhan_, she climbed up the mountain by the
little path which zigzagged between stones and thorn-bushes and sat
on a stone. Down below, the camp-fire was burning. Near the fire,
with his sleeves tucked up, the deacon was moving to and fro, and
his long black shadow kept describing a circle round it; he put on
wood, and with a spoon tied to a long stick he stirred the cauldron.
Samoylenko, with a copper-red face, was fussing round the fire just
as though he were in his own kitchen, shouting furiously:

"Where's the salt, gentlemen? I bet you've forgotten it. Why are
you all sitting about like lords while I do the work?"

Laevsky and Nikodim Alexandritch were sitting side by side on the
fallen tree looking pensively at the fire. Marya Konstantinovna,
Katya, and Kostya were taking the cups, saucers, and plates out of
the baskets. Von Koren, with his arms folded and one foot on a
stone, was standing on a bank at the very edge of the water, thinking
about something. Patches of red light from the fire moved together
with the shadows over the ground near the dark human figures, and
quivered on the mountain, on the trees, on the bridge, on the
drying-shed; on the other side the steep, scooped-out bank was all
lighted up and glimmering in the stream, and the rushing turbid
water broke its reflection into little bits.

The deacon went for the fish which Kerbalay was cleaning and washing
on the bank, but he stood still half-way and looked about him.

"My God, how nice it is!" he thought. "People, rocks, the fire, the
twilight, a monstrous tree--nothing more, and yet how fine it
is!"

On the further bank some unknown persons made their appearance near
the drying-shed. The flickering light and the smoke from the camp-fire
puffing in that direction made it impossible to get a full view of
them all at once, but glimpses were caught now of a shaggy hat and
a grey beard, now of a blue shirt, now of a figure, ragged from
shoulder to knee, with a dagger across the body; then a swarthy
young face with black eyebrows, as thick and bold as though they
had been drawn in charcoal. Five of them sat in a circle on the
ground, and the other five went into the drying-shed. One was
standing at the door with his back to the fire, and with his hands
behind his back was telling something, which must have been very
interesting, for when Samoylenko threw on twigs and the fire flared
up, and scattered sparks and threw a glaring light on the shed, two
calm countenances with an expression on them of deep attention could
be seen, looking out of the door, while those who were sitting in
a circle turned round and began listening to the speaker. Soon
after, those sitting in a circle began softly singing something
slow and melodious, that sounded like Lenten Church music. . . .
Listening to them, the deacon imagined how it would be with him in
ten years' time, when he would come back from the expedition: he
would be a young priest and monk, an author with a name and a
splendid past; he would be consecrated an archimandrite, then a
bishop; and he would serve mass in the cathedral; in a golden mitre
he would come out into the body of the church with the ikon on his
breast, and blessing the mass of the people with the triple and the
double candelabra, would proclaim: "Look down from Heaven, O God,
behold and visit this vineyard which Thy Hand has planted," and the
children with their angel voices would sing in response: "Holy
God. . ."

"Deacon, where is that fish?" he heard Samoylenko's voice.

As he went back to the fire, the deacon imagined the Church procession
going along a dusty road on a hot July day; in front the peasants
carrying the banners and the women and children the ikons, then the
boy choristers and the sacristan with his face tied up and a straw
in his hair, then in due order himself, the deacon, and behind him
the priest wearing his _calotte_ and carrying a cross, and behind
them, tramping in the dust, a crowd of peasants--men, women, and
children; in the crowd his wife and the priest's wife with kerchiefs
on their heads. The choristers sing, the babies cry, the corncrakes
call, the lark carols. . . . Then they make a stand and sprinkle
the herd with holy water. . . . They go on again, and then kneeling
pray for rain. Then lunch and talk. . . .

"And that's nice too . . ." thought the deacon.

VII

Kirilin and Atchmianov climbed up the mountain by the path. Atchmianov
dropped behind and stopped, while Kirilin went up to Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna.

"Good-evening," he said, touching his cap.

"Good-evening."

"Yes!" said Kirilin, looking at the sky and pondering.

"Why 'yes'?" asked Nadyezhda Fyodorovna after a brief pause, noticing
that Atchmianov was watching them both.

"And so it seems," said the officer, slowly, "that our love has
withered before it has blossomed, so to speak. How do you wish me
to understand it? Is it a sort of coquetry on your part, or do you
look upon me as a nincompoop who can be treated as you choose."

"It was a mistake! Leave me alone!" Nadyezhda Fyodorovna said
sharply, on that beautiful, marvellous evening, looking at him with
terror and asking herself with bewilderment, could there really
have been a moment when that man attracted her and had been near
to her?

"So that's it!" said Kirilin; he thought in silence for a few minutes
and said: "Well, I'll wait till you are in a better humour, and
meanwhile I venture to assure you I am a gentleman, and I don't
allow any one to doubt it. Adieu!"

He touched his cap again and walked off, making his way between the
bushes. After a short interval Atchmianov approached hesitatingly.

"What a fine evening!" he said with a slight Armenian accent.

He was nice-looking, fashionably dressed, and behaved unaffectedly
like a well-bred youth, but Nadyezhda Fyodorovna did not like him
because she owed his father three hundred roubles; it was displeasing
to her, too, that a shopkeeper had been asked to the picnic, and
she was vexed at his coming up to her that evening when her heart
felt so pure.

"The picnic is a success altogether," he said, after a pause.

"Yes," she agreed, and as though suddenly remembering her debt, she
said carelessly: "Oh, tell them in your shop that Ivan Andreitch
will come round in a day or two and will pay three hundred roubles
. . . . I don't remember exactly what it is."

"I would give another three hundred if you would not mention that
debt every day. Why be prosaic?"

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna laughed; the amusing idea occurred to her that
if she had been willing and sufficiently immoral she might in one
minute be free from her debt. If she, for instance, were to turn
the head of this handsome young fool! How amusing, absurd, wild it
would be really! And she suddenly felt a longing to make him love
her, to plunder him, throw him over, and then to see what would
come of it.

"Allow me to give you one piece of advice," Atchmianov said timidly.
"I beg you to beware of Kirilin. He says horrible things about you
everywhere."

"It doesn't interest me to know what every fool says of me," Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna said coldly, and the amusing thought of playing with
handsome young Atchmianov suddenly lost its charm.

"We must go down," she said; "they're calling us."

The fish soup was ready by now. They were ladling it out by platefuls,
and eating it with the religious solemnity with which this is only
done at a picnic; and every one thought the fish soup very good,
and thought that at home they had never eaten anything so nice. As
is always the case at picnics, in the mass of dinner napkins,
parcels, useless greasy papers fluttering in the wind, no one knew
where was his glass or where his bread. They poured the wine on the
carpet and on their own knees, spilt the salt, while it was dark
all round them and the fire burnt more dimly, and every one was too
lazy to get up and put wood on. They all drank wine, and even gave
Kostya and Katya half a glass each. Nadyezhda Fyodorovna drank one
glass and then another, got a little drunk and forgot about Kirilin.

"A splendid picnic, an enchanting evening," said Laevsky, growing
lively with the wine. "But I should prefer a fine winter to all
this. 'His beaver collar is silver with hoar-frost.'"

"Every one to his taste," observed Von Koren.

Laevsky felt uncomfortable; the heat of the campfire was beating
upon his back, and the hatred of Von Koren upon his breast and face:
this hatred on the part of a decent, clever man, a feeling in which
there probably lay hid a well-grounded reason, humiliated him and
enervated him, and unable to stand up against it, he said in a
propitiatory tone:

"I am passionately fond of nature, and I regret that I'm not a
naturalist. I envy you."

"Well, I don't envy you, and don't regret it," said Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna. "I don't understand how any one can seriously interest
himself in beetles and ladybirds while the people are suffering."

Laevsky shared her opinion. He was absolutely ignorant of natural
science, and so could never reconcile himself to the authoritative
tone and the learned and profound air of the people who devoted
themselves to the whiskers of ants and the claws of beetles, and
he always felt vexed that these people, relying on these whiskers,
claws, and something they called protoplasm (he always imagined it
in the form of an oyster), should undertake to decide questions
involving the origin and life of man. But in Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's
words he heard a note of falsity, and simply to contradict her he
said: "The point is not the ladybirds, but the deductions made from
them."

VIII

It was late, eleven o'clock, when they began to get into the carriages
to go home. They took their seats, and the only ones missing were
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and Atchmianov, who were running after one
another, laughing, the other side of the stream.

"Make haste, my friends," shouted Samoylenko.

"You oughtn't to give ladies wine," said Von Koren in a low voice.

Laevsky, exhausted by the picnic, by the hatred of Von Koren, and
by his own thoughts, went to meet Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and when,
gay and happy, feeling light as a feather, breathless and laughing,
she took him by both hands and laid her head on his breast, he
stepped back and said dryly:

"You are behaving like a . . . cocotte."

It sounded horribly coarse, so that he felt sorry for her at once.
On his angry, exhausted face she read hatred, pity and vexation
with himself, and her heart sank at once. She realised instantly
that she had gone too far, had been too free and easy in her
behaviour, and overcome with misery, feeling herself heavy, stout,
coarse, and drunk, she got into the first empty carriage together
with Atchmianov. Laevsky got in with Kirilin, the zoologist with
Samoylenko, the deacon with the ladies, and the party set off.

"You see what the Japanese monkeys are like," Von Koren began,
rolling himself up in his cloak and shutting his eyes. "You heard
she doesn't care to take an interest in beetles and ladybirds because
the people are suffering. That's how all the Japanese monkeys look
upon people like us. They're a slavish, cunning race, terrified by
the whip and the fist for ten generations; they tremble and burn
incense only before violence; but let the monkey into a free state
where there's no one to take it by the collar, and it relaxes at
once and shows itself in its true colours. Look how bold they are
in picture galleries, in museums, in theatres, or when they talk
of science: they puff themselves out and get excited, they are
abusive and critical . . . they are bound to criticise--it's the
sign of the slave. You listen: men of the liberal professions are
more often sworn at than pickpockets--that's because three-quarters
of society are made up of slaves, of just such monkeys. It never
happens that a slave holds out his hand to you and sincerely says
'Thank you' to you for your work."

"I don't know what you want," said Samoylenko, yawning; "the poor
thing, in the simplicity of her heart, wanted to talk to you of
scientific subjects, and you draw a conclusion from that. You're
cross with him for something or other, and with her, too, to keep
him company. She's a splendid woman."

"Ah, nonsense! An ordinary kept woman, depraved and vulgar. Listen,
Alexandr Daviditch; when you meet a simple peasant woman, who isn't
living with her husband, who does nothing but giggle, you tell her
to go and work. Why are you timid in this case and afraid to tell
the truth? Simply because Nadyezhda Fyodorovna is kept, not by a
sailor, but by an official."

"What am I to do with her?" said Samoylenko, getting angry. "Beat
her or what?

"Not flatter vice. We curse vice only behind its back, and that's
like making a long nose at it round a corner. I am a zoologist or
a sociologist, which is the same thing; you are a doctor; society
believes in us; we ought to point out the terrible harm which
threatens it and the next generation from the existence of ladies
like Nadyezhda Ivanovna."

"Fyodorovna," Samoylenko corrected. "But what ought society to do?"

"Society? That's its affair. To my thinking the surest and most
direct method is--compulsion. _Manu militari_ she ought to be
returned to her husband; and if her husband won't take her in, then
she ought to be sent to penal servitude or some house of correction."

"Ouf!" sighed Samoylenko. He paused and asked quietly: "You said
the other day that people like Laevsky ought to be destroyed. . . .
Tell me, if you . . . if the State or society commissioned you
to destroy him, could you . . . bring yourself to it?"

"My hand would not tremble."

IX

When they got home, Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna went into their
dark, stuffy, dull rooms. Both were silent. Laevsky lighted a candle,
while Nadyezhda Fyodorovna sat down, and without taking off her
cloak and hat, lifted her melancholy, guilty eyes to him.

He knew that she expected an explanation from him, but an explanation
would be wearisome, useless and exhausting, and his heart was heavy
because he had lost control over himself and been rude to her. He
chanced to feel in his pocket the letter which he had been intending
every day to read to her, and thought if he were to show her that
letter now, it would turn her thoughts in another direction.

"It is time to define our relations," he thought. "I will give it
her; what is to be will be."

He took out the letter and gave it her.

"Read it. It concerns you."

Saying this, he went into his own room and lay down on the sofa in
the dark without a pillow. Nadyezhda Fyodorovna read the letter,
and it seemed to her as though the ceiling were falling and the
walls were closing in on her. It seemed suddenly dark and shut in
and terrible. She crossed herself quickly three times and said:

"Give him peace, O Lord . . . give him peace. . . ."

And she began crying.

"Vanya," she called. "Ivan Andreitch!"

There was no answer. Thinking that Laevsky had come in and was
standing behind her chair, she sobbed like a child, and said:

"Why did you not tell me before that he was dead? I wouldn't have
gone to the picnic; I shouldn't have laughed so horribly. . . . The
men said horrid things to me. What a sin, what a sin! Save me,
Vanya, save me. . . . I have been mad. . . . I am lost. . . ."

Laevsky heard her sobs. He felt stifled and his heart was beating
violently. In his misery he got up, stood in the middle of the room,
groped his way in the dark to an easy-chair by the table, and sat
down.

"This is a prison . . ." he thought. "I must get away . . . I can't
bear it."

It was too late to go and play cards; there were no restaurants in
the town. He lay down again and covered his ears that he might not
hear her sobbing, and he suddenly remembered that he could go to
Samoylenko. To avoid going near Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, he got out
of the window into the garden, climbed over the garden fence and
went along the street. It was dark. A steamer, judging by its lights,
a big passenger one, had just come in. He heard the clank of the
anchor chain. A red light was moving rapidly from the shore in the
direction of the steamer: it was the Customs boat going out to it.

"The passengers are asleep in their cabins . . ." thought Laevsky,
and he envied the peace of mind of other people.

The windows in Samoylenko's house were open. Laevsky looked in at
one of them, then in at another; it was dark and still in the rooms.

"Alexandr Daviditch, are you asleep?" he called. "Alexandr Daviditch!"

He heard a cough and an uneasy shout:

"Who's there? What the devil?"

"It is I, Alexandr Daviditch; excuse me."

A little later the door opened; there was a glow of soft light from
the lamp, and Samoylenko's huge figure appeared all in white, with
a white nightcap on his head.

"What now?" he asked, scratching himself and breathing hard from
sleepiness. "Wait a minute; I'll open the door directly."

"Don't trouble; I'll get in at the window. . . ."

Laevsky climbed in at the window, and when he reached Samoylenko,
seized him by the hand.

"Alexandr Daviditch," he said in a shaking voice, "save me! I beseech
you, I implore you. Understand me! My position is agonising. If it
goes on for another two days I shall strangle myself like . . .
like a dog."

"Wait a bit. . . . What are you talking about exactly?"

"Light a candle."

"Oh . . . oh! . . ." sighed Samoylenko, lighting a candle. "My God!
My God! . . . Why, it's past one, brother."

"Excuse me, but I can't stay at home," said Laevsky, feeling great
comfort from the light and the presence of Samoylenko. "You are my
best, my only friend, Alexandr Daviditch. . . . You are my only
hope. For God's sake, come to my rescue, whether you want to or
not. I must get away from here, come what may! . . . Lend me the
money!"

"Oh, my God, my God! . . ." sighed Samoylenko, scratching himself.
"I was dropping asleep and I hear the whistle of the steamer, and
now you . . . Do you want much?"

"Three hundred roubles at least. I must leave her a hundred, and I
need two hundred for the journey. . . . I owe you about four hundred
already, but I will send it you all . . . all. . . ."

Samoylenko took hold of both his whiskers in one hand, and standing
with his legs wide apart, pondered.

"Yes . . ." he muttered, musing. "Three hundred. . . . Yes. . . .
But I haven't got so much. I shall have to borrow it from some one."

"Borrow it, for God's sake!" said Laevsky, seeing from Samoylenko's
face that he wanted to lend him the money and certainly would lend
it. "Borrow it, and I'll be sure to pay you back. I will send it
from Petersburg as soon as I get there. You can set your mind at
rest about that. I'll tell you what, Sasha," he said, growing more
animated; "let us have some wine."

"Yes . . . we can have some wine, too."

They both went into the dining-room.

"And how about Nadyezhda Fyodorovna?" asked Samoylenko, setting
three bottles and a plate of peaches on the table. "Surely she's
not remaining?"

"I will arrange it all, I will arrange it all," said Laevsky, feeling
an unexpected rush of joy. "I will send her the money afterwards
and she will join me. . . . Then we will define our relations. To
your health, friend."

"Wait a bit," said Samoylenko. "Drink this first. . . . This is
from my vineyard. This bottle is from Navaridze's vineyard and this
one is from Ahatulov's. . . . Try all three kinds and tell me
candidly. . . . There seems a little acidity about mine. Eh? Don't
you taste it?"

"Yes. You have comforted me, Alexandr Daviditch. Thank you. . . .
I feel better."

"Is there any acidity?"

"Goodness only knows, I don't know. But you are a splendid, wonderful
man!"

Looking at his pale, excited, good-natured face, Samoylenko remembered
Von Koren's view that men like that ought to be destroyed, and
Laevsky seemed to him a weak, defenceless child, whom any one could
injure and destroy.

"And when you go, make it up with your mother," he said. "It's not
right."

"Yes, yes; I certainly shall."

They were silent for a while. When they had emptied the first bottle,
Samoylenko said:

"You ought to make it up with Von Koren too. You are both such
splendid, clever fellows, and you glare at each other like wolves."

"Yes, he's a fine, very intelligent fellow," Laevsky assented, ready
now to praise and forgive every one. "He's a remarkable man, but
it's impossible for me to get on with him. No! Our natures are too
different. I'm an indolent, weak, submissive nature. Perhaps in a
good minute I might hold out my hand to him, but he would turn away
from me . . . with contempt."

Laevsky took a sip of wine, walked from corner to corner and went
on, standing in the middle of the room:

"I understand Von Koren very well. His is a resolute, strong,
despotic nature. You have heard him continually talking of 'the
expedition,' and it's not mere talk. He wants the wilderness, the
moonlit night: all around in little tents, under the open sky, lie
sleeping his sick and hungry Cossacks, guides, porters, doctor,
priest, all exhausted with their weary marches, while only he is
awake, sitting like Stanley on a camp-stool, feeling himself the
monarch of the desert and the master of these men. He goes on and
on and on, his men groan and die, one after another, and he goes
on and on, and in the end perishes himself, but still is monarch
and ruler of the desert, since the cross upon his tomb can be seen
by the caravans for thirty or forty miles over the desert. I am
sorry the man is not in the army. He would have made a splendid
military genius. He would not have hesitated to drown his cavalry
in the river and make a bridge out of dead bodies. And such hardihood
is more needed in war than any kind of fortification or strategy.
Oh, I understand him perfectly! Tell me: why is he wasting his
substance here? What does he want here?"

"He is studying the marine fauna."

"No, no, brother, no!" Laevsky sighed. "A scientific man who was
on the steamer told me the Black Sea was poor in animal life, and
that in its depths, thanks to the abundance of sulphuric hydrogen,
organic life was impossible. All the serious zoologists work at the
biological station at Naples or Villefranche. But Von Koren is
independent and obstinate: he works on the Black Sea because nobody
else is working there; he is at loggerheads with the university,
does not care to know his comrades and other scientific men because
he is first of all a despot and only secondly a zoologist. And
you'll see he'll do something. He is already dreaming that when he
comes back from his expedition he will purify our universities from
intrigue and mediocrity, and will make the scientific men mind their
p's and q's. Despotism is just as strong in science as in the army.
And he is spending his second summer in this stinking little town
because he would rather be first in a village than second in a town.
Here he is a king and an eagle; he keeps all the inhabitants under
his thumb and oppresses them with his authority. He has appropriated
every one, he meddles in other people's affairs; everything is of
use to him, and every one is afraid of him. I am slipping out of
his clutches, he feels that and hates me. Hasn't he told you that
I ought to be destroyed or sent to hard labour?"

"Yes," laughed Samoylenko.

Laevsky laughed too, and drank some wine.

"His ideals are despotic too," he said, laughing, and biting a
peach. "Ordinary mortals think of their neighbour--me, you, man
in fact--if they work for the common weal. To Von Koren men are
puppets and nonentities, too trivial to be the object of his life.
He works, will go for his expedition and break his neck there, not
for the sake of love for his neighbour, but for the sake of such
abstractions as humanity, future generations, an ideal race of men.
He exerts himself for the improvement of the human race, and we are
in his eyes only slaves, food for the cannon, beasts of burden;
some he would destroy or stow away in Siberia, others he would break
by discipline, would, like Araktcheev, force them to get up and go
to bed to the sound of the drum; would appoint eunuchs to preserve
our chastity and morality, would order them to fire at any one who
steps out of the circle of our narrow conservative morality; and
all this in the name of the improvement of the human race. . . .
And what is the human race? Illusion, mirage . . . despots have
always been illusionists. I understand him very well, brother. I
appreciate him and don't deny his importance; this world rests on
men like him, and if the world were left only to such men as us,
for all our good-nature and good intentions, we should make as great
a mess of it as the flies have of that picture. Yes."

Laevsky sat down beside Samoylenko, and said with genuine feeling:
"I'm a foolish, worthless, depraved man. The air I breathe, this
wine, love, life in fact--for all that, I have given nothing in
exchange so far but lying, idleness, and cowardice. Till now I have
deceived myself and other people; I have been miserable about it,
and my misery was cheap and common. I bow my back humbly before Von
Koren's hatred because at times I hate and despise myself."

Laevsky began again pacing from one end of the room to the other
in excitement, and said:

"I'm glad I see my faults clearly and am conscious of them. That
will help me to reform and become a different man. My dear fellow,
if only you knew how passionately, with what anguish, I long for
such a change. And I swear to you I'll be a man! I will! I don't
know whether it is the wine that is speaking in me, or whether it
really is so, but it seems to me that it is long since I have spent
such pure and lucid moments as I have just now with you."

"It's time to sleep, brother," said Samoylenko.

"Yes, yes. . . . Excuse me; I'll go directly."

Laevsky moved hurriedly about the furniture and windows, looking
for his cap.

"Thank you," he muttered, sighing. "Thank you. . . . Kind and
friendly words are better than charity. You have given me new life."

He found his cap, stopped, and looked guiltily at Samoylenko.

"Alexandr Daviditch," he said in an imploring voice.

"What is it?"

"Let me stay the night with you, my dear fellow!"

"Certainly. . . . Why not?"

Laevsky lay down on the sofa, and went on talking to the doctor for
a long time.

X

Three days after the picnic, Marya Konstantinovna unexpectedly
called on Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and without greeting her or taking
off her hat, seized her by both hands, pressed them to her breast
and said in great excitement:

"My dear, I am deeply touched and moved: our dear kind-hearted
doctor told my Nikodim Alexandritch yesterday that your husband was
dead. Tell me, my dear . . . tell me, is it true?"

"Yes, it's true; he is dead," answered Nadyezhda Fyodorovna.

"That is awful, awful, my dear! But there's no evil without some
compensation; your husband was no doubt a noble, wonderful, holy
man, and such are more needed in Heaven than on earth."

Every line and feature in Marya Konstantinovna's face began quivering
as though little needles were jumping up and down under her skin;
she gave an almond-oily smile and said, breathlessly, enthusiastically:

"And so you are free, my dear. You can hold your head high now, and
look people boldly in the face. Henceforth God and man will bless
your union with Ivan Andreitch. It's enchanting. I am trembling
with joy, I can find no words. My dear, I will give you away. . . .
Nikodim Alexandritch and I have been so fond of you, you will
allow us to give our blessing to your pure, lawful union. When,
when do you think of being married?"

"I haven't thought of it," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, freeing her
hands.

"That's impossible, my dear. You have thought of it, you have."

"Upon my word, I haven't," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, laughing.
"What should we be married for? I see no necessity for it. We'll
go on living as we have lived."

"What are you saying!" cried Marya Konstantinovna in horror. "For
God's sake, what are you saying!"

"Our getting married won't make things any better. On the contrary,
it will make them even worse. We shall lose our freedom."

"My dear, my dear, what are you saying!" exclaimed Marya Konstantinovna,
stepping back and flinging up her hands. "You are talking wildly!
Think what you are saying. You must settle down!"

"'Settle down.' How do you mean? I have not lived yet, and you
tell me to settle down."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna reflected that she really had not lived. She
had finished her studies in a boarding-school and had been married
to a man she did not love; then she had thrown in her lot with
Laevsky, and had spent all her time with him on this empty, desolate
coast, always expecting something better. Was that life?

"I ought to be married though," she thought, but remembering Kirilin
and Atchmianov she flushed and said:

"No, it's impossible. Even if Ivan Andreitch begged me to on his
knees--even then I would refuse."

Marya Konstantinovna sat on the sofa for a minute in silence, grave
and mournful, gazing fixedly into space; then she got up and said
coldly:

"Good-bye, my dear! Forgive me for having troubled you. Though it's
not easy for me, it's my duty to tell you that from this day all
is over between us, and, in spite of my profound respect for Ivan
Andreitch, the door of my house is closed to you henceforth."

She uttered these words with great solemnity and was herself
overwhelmed by her solemn tone. Her face began quivering again; it
assumed a soft almond-oily expression. She held out both hands to
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, who was overcome with alarm and confusion,
and said in an imploring voice:

"My dear, allow me if only for a moment to be a mother or an elder
sister to you! I will be as frank with you as a mother."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna felt in her bosom warmth, gladness, and pity
for herself, as though her own mother had really risen up and were
standing before her. She impulsively embraced Marya Konstantinovna
and pressed her face to her shoulder. Both of them shed tears. They
sat down on the sofa and for a few minutes sobbed without looking
at one another or being able to utter a word.

"My dear child," began Marya Konstantinovna, "I will tell you some
harsh truths, without sparing you."

"For God's sake, for God's sake, do!"

"Trust me, my dear. You remember of all the ladies here, I was the
only one to receive you. You horrified me from the very first day,
but I had not the heart to treat you with disdain like all the rest.
I grieved over dear, good Ivan Andreitch as though he were my son
--a young man in a strange place, inexperienced, weak, with no
mother; and I was worried, dreadfully worried. . . . My husband was
opposed to our making his acquaintance, but I talked him over . . .
persuaded him. . . . We began receiving Ivan Andreitch, and with
him, of course, you. If we had not, he would have been insulted. I
have a daughter, a son. . . . You understand the tender mind, the
pure heart of childhood . . . 'who so offendeth one of these little
ones.' . . . I received you into my house and trembled for my
children. Oh, when you become a mother, you will understand my
fears. And every one was surprised at my receiving you, excuse my
saying so, as a respectable woman, and hinted to me . . . well, of
course, slanders, suppositions. . . . At the bottom of my heart I
blamed you, but you were unhappy, flighty, to be pitied, and my
heart was wrung with pity for you."

"But why, why?" asked Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, trembling all over.
"What harm have I done any one?"

"You are a terrible sinner. You broke the vow you made your husband
at the altar. You seduced a fine young man, who perhaps had he not
met you might have taken a lawful partner for life from a good
family in his own circle, and would have been like every one else
now. You have ruined his youth. Don't speak, don't speak, my dear!
I never believe that man is to blame for our sins. It is always the
woman's fault. Men are frivolous in domestic life; they are guided
by their minds, and not by their hearts. There's a great deal they
don't understand; woman understands it all. Everything depends on
her. To her much is given and from her much will be required. Oh,
my dear, if she had been more foolish or weaker than man on that
side, God would not have entrusted her with the education of boys
and girls. And then, my dear, you entered on the path of vice,
forgetting all modesty; any other woman in your place would have
hidden herself from people, would have sat shut up at home, and
would only have been seen in the temple of God, pale, dressed all
in black and weeping, and every one would have said in genuine
compassion: 'O Lord, this erring angel is coming back again to Thee
. . . .' But you, my dear, have forgotten all discretion; have lived
openly, extravagantly; have seemed to be proud of your sin; you
have been gay and laughing, and I, looking at you, shuddered with
horror, and have been afraid that thunder from Heaven would strike
our house while you were sitting with us. My dear, don't speak,
don't speak," cried Marya Konstantinovna, observing that Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna wanted to speak. "Trust me, I will not deceive you, I
will not hide one truth from the eyes of your soul. Listen to me,
my dear. . . . God marks great sinners, and you have been marked-out:
only think--your costumes have always been appalling."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, who had always had the highest opinion of her
costumes, left off crying and looked at her with surprise.

"Yes, appalling," Marya Konstantinovna went on. "Any one could judge
of your behaviour from the elaboration and gaudiness of your attire.
People laughed and shrugged their shoulders as they looked at you,
and I grieved, I grieved. . . . And forgive me, my dear; you are
not nice in your person! When we met in the bathing-place, you made
me tremble. Your outer clothing was decent enough, but your petticoat,
your chemise. . . . My dear, I blushed! Poor Ivan Andreitch! No one
ever ties his cravat properly, and from his linen and his boots,
poor fellow! one can see he has no one at home to look after him.
And he is always hungry, my darling, and of course, if there is no
one at home to think of the samovar and the coffee, one is forced
to spend half one's salary at the pavilion. And it's simply awful,
awful in your home! No one else in the town has flies, but there's
no getting rid of them in your rooms: all the plates and dishes are
black with them. If you look at the windows and the chairs, there's
nothing but dust, dead flies, and glasses. . . . What do you want
glasses standing about for? And, my dear, the table's not cleared
till this time in the day. And one's ashamed to go into your bedroom:
underclothes flung about everywhere, india-rubber tubes hanging on
the walls, pails and basins standing about. . . . My dear! A husband
ought to know nothing, and his wife ought to be as neat as a little
angel in his presence. I wake up every morning before it is light,
and wash my face with cold water that my Nikodim Alexandritch may
not see me looking drowsy."

"That's all nonsense," Nadyezhda Fyodorovna sobbed. "If only I were
happy, but I am so unhappy!"

"Yes, yes; you are very unhappy!" Marya Konstantinovna sighed,
hardly able to restrain herself from weeping. "And there's terrible
grief in store for you in the future! A solitary old age, ill-health;
and then you will have to answer at the dread judgment seat. . .
It's awful, awful. Now fate itself holds out to you a helping hand,
and you madly thrust it from you. Be married, make haste and be
married!"

"Yes, we must, we must," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna; "but it's
impossible!"

"Why?"

"It's impossible. Oh, if only you knew!"

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna had an impulse to tell her about Kirilin, and
how the evening before she had met handsome young Atchmianov at the
harbour, and how the mad, ridiculous idea had occurred to her of
cancelling her debt for three hundred; it had amused her very much,
and she returned home late in the evening feeling that she had sold
herself and was irrevocably lost. She did not know herself how it
had happened. And she longed to swear to Marya Konstantinovna that
she would certainly pay that debt, but sobs and shame prevented her
from speaking.

"I am going away," she said. "Ivan Andreitch may stay, but I am
going."

"Where?"

"To Russia."

"But how will you live there? Why, you have nothing."

"I will do translation, or . . . or I will open a library . . . ."

"Don't let your fancy run away with you, my dear. You must have
money for a library. Well, I will leave you now, and you calm
yourself and think things over, and to-morrow come and see me,
bright and happy. That will be enchanting! Well, good-bye, my angel.
Let me kiss you."

Marya Konstantinovna kissed Nadyezhda Fyodorovna on the forehead,
made the sign of the cross over her, and softly withdrew. It was
getting dark, and Olga lighted up in the kitchen. Still crying,
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed.
She began to be very feverish. She undressed without getting up,
crumpled up her clothes at her feet, and curled herself up under
the bedclothes. She was thirsty, and there was no one to give her
something to drink.

"I'll pay it back!" she said to herself, and it seemed to her in
delirium that she was sitting beside some sick woman, and recognised
her as herself. "I'll pay it back. It would be stupid to imagine
that it was for money I . . . I will go away and send him the money
from Petersburg. At first a hundred . . . then another hundred . . .
and then the third hundred. . . ."

It was late at night when Laevsky came in.

"At first a hundred . . ." Nadyezhda Fyodorovna said to him, "then
another hundred . . ."

"You ought to take some quinine," he said, and thought, "To-morrow
is Wednesday; the steamer goes and I am not going in it. So I shall
have to go on living here till Saturday."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna knelt up in bed.

"I didn't say anything just now, did I?" she asked, smiling and
screwing up her eyes at the light.

"No, nothing. We shall have to send for the doctor to-morrow morning.
Go to sleep."

He took his pillow and went to the door. Ever since he had finally
made up his mind to go away and leave Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, she had
begun to raise in him pity and a sense of guilt; he felt a little
ashamed in her presence, as though in the presence of a sick or old
horse whom one has decided to kill. He stopped in the doorway and
looked round at her.

"I was out of humour at the picnic and said something rude to you.
Forgive me, for God's sake!"

Saying this, he went off to his study, lay down, and for a long
while could not get to sleep.

Next morning when Samoylenko, attired, as it was a holiday, in
full-dress uniform with epaulettes on his shoulders and decorations
on his breast, came out of the bedroom after feeling Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna's pulse and looking at her tongue, Laevsky, who was
standing in the doorway, asked him anxiously: "Well? Well?"

There was an expression of terror, of extreme uneasiness, and of
hope on his face.

"Don't worry yourself; there's nothing dangerous," said Samoylenko;
"it's the usual fever."

"I don't mean that." Laevsky frowned impatiently. "Have you got the
money?"

"My dear soul, forgive me," he whispered, looking round at the door
and overcome with confusion.

"For God's sake, forgive me! No one has anything to spare, and I've
only been able to collect by five- and by ten-rouble notes. . . .
Only a hundred and ten in all. To-day I'll speak to some one else.
Have patience."

"But Saturday is the latest date," whispered Laevsky, trembling
with impatience. "By all that's sacred, get it by Saturday! If I
don't get away by Saturday, nothing's any use, nothing! I can't
understand how a doctor can be without money!"

"Lord have mercy on us!" Samoylenko whispered rapidly and intensely,
and there was positively a breaking note in his throat. "I've been
stripped of everything; I am owed seven thousand, and I'm in debt
all round. Is it my fault?"

"Then you'll get it by Saturday? Yes?"

"I'll try."

"I implore you, my dear fellow! So that the money may be in my hands
by Friday morning!"

Samoylenko sat down and prescribed solution of quinine and kalii
bromati and tincture of rhubarb, tincturae gentianae, aquae foeniculi
--all in one mixture, added some pink syrup to sweeten it, and
went away.

XI

"You look as though you were coming to arrest me," said Von Koren,
seeing Samoylenko coming in, in his full-dress uniform.

"I was passing by and thought: 'Suppose I go in and pay my respects
to zoology,'" said Samoylenko, sitting down at the big table,
knocked together by the zoologist himself out of plain boards.
"Good-morning, holy father," he said to the deacon, who was sitting
in the window, copying something. "I'll stay a minute and then run
home to see about dinner. It's time. . . . I'm not hindering you?"

"Not in the least," answered the zoologist, laying out over the
table slips of paper covered with small writing. "We are busy
copying."

"Ah! . . . Oh, my goodness, my goodness! . . ." sighed Samoylenko.
He cautiously took up from the table a dusty book on which there
was lying a dead dried spider, and said: "Only fancy, though; some
little green beetle is going about its business, when suddenly a
monster like this swoops down upon it. I can fancy its terror."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Is poison given it to protect it from its enemies?"

"Yes, to protect it and enable it to attack."

"To be sure, to be sure. . . . And everything in nature, my dear
fellows, is consistent and can be explained," sighed Samoylenko;
"only I tell you what I don't understand. You're a man of very great
intellect, so explain it to me, please. There are, you know, little
beasts no bigger than rats, rather handsome to look at, but nasty
and immoral in the extreme, let me tell you. Suppose such a little
beast is running in the woods. He sees a bird; he catches it and
devours it. He goes on and sees in the grass a nest of eggs; he
does not want to eat them--he is not hungry, but yet he tastes
one egg and scatters the others out of the nest with his paw. Then
he meets a frog and begins to play with it; when he has tormented
the frog he goes on licking himself and meets a beetle; he crushes
the beetle with his paw . . . and so he spoils and destroys everything
on his way. . . . He creeps into other beasts' holes, tears up the
anthills, cracks the snail's shell. If he meets a rat, he fights
with it; if he meets a snake or a mouse, he must strangle it; and
so the whole day long. Come, tell me: what is the use of a beast
like that? Why was he created?"

"I don't know what animal you are talking of," said Von Koren; "most
likely one of the insectivora. Well, he got hold of the bird because
it was incautious; he broke the nest of eggs because the bird was
not skilful, had made the nest badly and did not know how to conceal
it. The frog probably had some defect in its colouring or he would
not have seen it, and so on. Your little beast only destroys the
weak, the unskilful, the careless--in fact, those who have defects
which nature does not think fit to hand on to posterity. Only the
cleverer, the stronger, the more careful and developed survive; and
so your little beast, without suspecting it, is serving the great
ends of perfecting creation."

"Yes, yes, yes. . . . By the way, brother," said Samoylenko carelessly,
"lend me a hundred roubles."

"Very good. There are some very interesting types among the
insectivorous mammals. For instance, the mole is said to be useful
because he devours noxious insects. There is a story that some
German sent William I. a fur coat made of moleskins, and the Emperor
ordered him to be reproved for having destroyed so great a number
of useful animals. And yet the mole is not a bit less cruel than
your little beast, and is very mischievous besides, as he spoils
meadows terribly."

Von Koren opened a box and took out a hundred-rouble note.

"The mole has a powerful thorax, just like the bat," he went on,
shutting the box; "the bones and muscles are tremendously developed,
the mouth is extraordinarily powerfully furnished. If it had the
proportions of an elephant, it would be an all-destructive, invincible
animal. It is interesting when two moles meet underground; they
begin at once as though by agreement digging a little platform;
they need the platform in order to have a battle more conveniently.
When they have made it they enter upon a ferocious struggle and
fight till the weaker one falls. Take the hundred roubles," said
Von Koren, dropping his voice, "but only on condition that you're
not borrowing it for Laevsky."

"And if it were for Laevsky," cried Samoylenko, flaring up, "what
is that to you?"

"I can't give it to you for Laevsky. I know you like lending people
money. You would give it to Kerim, the brigand, if he were to ask
you; but, excuse me, I can't assist you in that direction."

"Yes, it is for Laevsky I am asking it," said Samoylenko, standing
up and waving his right arm. "Yes! For Laevsky! And no one, fiend
or devil, has a right to dictate to me how to dispose of my own
money. It doesn't suit you to lend it me? No?"

The deacon began laughing.

"Don't get excited, but be reasonable," said the zoologist. "To
shower benefits on Mr. Laevsky is, to my thinking, as senseless as
to water weeds or to feed locusts."

"To my thinking, it is our duty to help our neighbours!" cried
Samoylenko.

"In that case, help that hungry Turk who is lying under the fence!
He is a workman and more useful and indispensable than your Laevsky.
Give him that hundred-rouble note! Or subscribe a hundred roubles
to my expedition!"

"Will you give me the money or not? I ask you!"

"Tell me openly: what does he want money for?"

"It's not a secret; he wants to go to Petersburg on Saturday."

"So that is it!" Von Koren drawled out. "Aha! . . . We understand.
And is she going with him, or how is it to be?"

"She's staying here for the time. He'll arrange his affairs in
Petersburg and send her the money, and then she'll go."

"That's smart!" said the zoologist, and he gave a short tenor laugh.
"Smart, well planned."

He went rapidly up to Samoylenko, and standing face to face with
him, and looking him in the eyes, asked: "Tell me now honestly: is
he tired of her? Yes? tell me: is he tired of her? Yes?"

"Yes," Samoylenko articulated, beginning to perspire.

"How repulsive it is!" said Von Koren, and from his face it could
be seen that he felt repulsion. "One of two things, Alexandr
Daviditch: either you are in the plot with him, or, excuse my saying
so, you are a simpleton. Surely you must see that he is taking you
in like a child in the most shameless way? Why, it's as clear as
day that he wants to get rid of her and abandon her here. She'll
be left a burden on you. It is as clear as day that you will have
to send her to Petersburg at your expense. Surely your fine friend
can't have so blinded you by his dazzling qualities that you can't
see the simplest thing?"

"That's all supposition," said Samoylenko, sitting down.

"Supposition? But why is he going alone instead of taking her with
him? And ask him why he doesn't send her off first. The sly beast!"

Overcome with sudden doubts and suspicions about his friend,
Samoylenko weakened and took a humbler tone.

"But it's impossible," he said, recalling the night Laevsky had
spent at his house. "He is so unhappy!"

"What of that? Thieves and incendiaries are unhappy too!"

"Even supposing you are right . . ." said Samoylenko, hesitating.
"Let us admit it. . . . Still, he's a young man in a strange place
. . . a student. We have been students, too, and there is no one
but us to come to his assistance."

"To help him to do abominable things, because he and you at different
times have been at universities, and neither of you did anything
there! What nonsense!"

"Stop; let us talk it over coolly. I imagine it will be possible
to make some arrangement. . . ." Samoylenko reflected, twiddling
his fingers. "I'll give him the money, you see, but make him promise
on his honour that within a week he'll send Nadyezhda Fyodorovna
the money for the journey."

"And he'll give you his word of honour--in fact, he'll shed tears
and believe in it himself; but what's his word of honour worth? He
won't keep it, and when in a year or two you meet him on the Nevsky
Prospect with a new mistress on his arm, he'll excuse himself on
the ground that he has been crippled by civilisation, and that he
is made after the pattern of Rudin. Drop him, for God's sake! Keep
away from the filth; don't stir it up with both hands!"

Samoylenko thought for a minute and said resolutely:

"But I shall give him the money all the same. As you please. I can't
bring myself to refuse a man simply on an assumption."

"Very fine, too. You can kiss him if you like."

"Give me the hundred roubles, then," Samoylenko asked timidly.

"I won't."

A silence followed. Samoylenko was quite crushed; his face wore a
guilty, abashed, and ingratiating expression, and it was strange
to see this pitiful, childish, shamefaced countenance on a huge man
wearing epaulettes and orders of merit.

"The bishop here goes the round of his diocese on horseback instead
of in a carriage," said the deacon, laying down his pen. "It's
extremely touching to see him sit on his horse. His simplicity and
humility are full of Biblical grandeur."

"Is he a good man?" asked Von Koren, who was glad to change the
conversation.

"Of course! If he hadn't been a good man, do you suppose he would
have been consecrated a bishop?"

"Among the bishops are to be found good and gifted men," said Von
Koren. "The only drawback is that some of them have the weakness
to imagine themselves statesmen. One busies himself with Russification,
another criticises the sciences. That's not their business. They
had much better look into their consistory a little."

"A layman cannot judge of bishops."

"Why so, deacon? A bishop is a man just the same as you or I."

"The same, but not the same." The deacon was offended and took up
his pen. "If you had been the same, the Divine Grace would have
rested upon you, and you would have been bishop yourself; and since
you are not bishop, it follows you are not the same."

"Don't talk nonsense, deacon," said Samoylenko dejectedly. "Listen
to what I suggest," he said, turning to Von Koren. "Don't give me
that hundred roubles. You'll be having your dinners with me for
three months before the winter, so let me have the money beforehand
for three months."

"I won't."

Samoylenko blinked and turned crimson; he mechanically drew towards
him the book with the spider on it and looked at it, then he got
up and took his hat.

Von Koren felt sorry for him.

"What it is to have to live and do with people like this," said the
zoologist, and he kicked a paper into the corner with indignation.
"You must understand that this is not kindness, it is not love, but
cowardice, slackness, poison! What's gained by reason is lost by
your flabby good-for-nothing hearts! When I was ill with typhoid
as a schoolboy, my aunt in her sympathy gave me pickled mushrooms
to eat, and I very nearly died. You, and my aunt too, must understand
that love for man is not to be found in the heart or the stomach
or the bowels, but here!"

Von Koren slapped himself on the forehead.

"Take it," he said, and thrust a hundred-rouble note into his hand.

"You've no need to be angry, Kolya," said Samoylenko mildly, folding
up the note. "I quite understand you, but . . . you must put yourself
in my place."

"You are an old woman, that's what you are."

The deacon burst out laughing.

"Hear my last request, Alexandr Daviditch," said Von Koren hotly.
"When you give that scoundrel the money, make it a condition that
he takes his lady with him, or sends her on ahead, and don't give
it him without. There's no need to stand on ceremony with him. Tell
him so, or, if you don't, I give you my word I'll go to his office
and kick him downstairs, and I'll break off all acquaintance with
you. So you'd better know it."

"Well! To go with her or send her on beforehand will be more
convenient for him," said Samoylenko. "He'll be delighted indeed.
Well, goodbye."

He said good-bye affectionately and went out, but before shutting
the door after him, he looked round at Von Koren and, with a ferocious
face, said:

"It's the Germans who have ruined you, brother! Yes! The Germans!"

XII

Next day, Thursday, Marya Konstantinovna was celebrating the birthday
of her Kostya. All were invited to come at midday and eat pies, and
in the evening to drink chocolate. When Laevsky and Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna arrived in the evening, the zoologist, who was already
sitting in the drawing-room, drinking chocolate, asked Samoylenko:

"Have you talked to him?"

"Not yet."

"Mind now, don't stand on ceremony. I can't understand the insolence
of these people! Why, they know perfectly well the view taken by
this family of their cohabitation, and yet they force themselves
in here."

"If one is to pay attention to every prejudice," said Samoylenko,
"one could go nowhere."

"Do you mean to say that the repugnance felt by the masses for
illicit love and moral laxity is a prejudice?"

"Of course it is. It's prejudice and hate. When the soldiers see a
girl of light behaviour, they laugh and whistle; but just ask them
what they are themselves."

"It's not for nothing they whistle. The fact that girls strangle
their illegitimate children and go to prison for it, and that Anna
Karenin flung herself under the train, and that in the villages
they smear the gates with tar, and that you and I, without knowing
why, are pleased by Katya's purity, and that every one of us feels
a vague craving for pure love, though he knows there is no such
love--is all that prejudice? That is the one thing, brother, which
has survived intact from natural selection, and, if it were not for
that obscure force regulating the relations of the sexes, the
Laevskys would have it all their own way, and mankind would degenerate
in two years."

Laevsky came into the drawing-room, greeted every one, and shaking
hands with Von Koren, smiled ingratiatingly. He waited for a
favourable moment and said to Samoylenko:

"Excuse me, Alexandr Daviditch, I must say two words to you."

Samoylenko got up, put his arm round Laevsky's waist, and both of
them went into Nikodim Alexandritch's study.

"To-morrow's Friday," said Laevsky, biting his nails. "Have you got
what you promised?"

"I've only got two hundred. I'll get the rest to-day or to-morrow.
Don't worry yourself."

"Thank God . . ." sighed Laevsky, and his hands began trembling
with joy. "You are saving me, Alexandr Daviditch, and I swear to
you by God, by my happiness and anything you like, I'll send you
the money as soon as I arrive. And I'll send you my old debt too."

"Look here, Vanya . . ." said Samoylenko, turning crimson and taking
him by the button. "You must forgive my meddling in your private
affairs, but . . . why shouldn't you take Nadyezhda Fyodorovna with
you?"

"You queer fellow. How is that possible? One of us must stay, or
our creditors will raise an outcry. You see, I owe seven hundred
or more to the shops. Only wait, and I will send them the money.
I'll stop their mouths, and then she can come away."

"I see. . . . But why shouldn't you send her on first?"

"My goodness, as though that were possible!" Laevsky was horrified.
"Why, she's a woman; what would she do there alone? What does she
know about it? That would only be a loss of time and a useless waste
of money."

"That's reasonable . . ." thought Samoylenko, but remembering his
conversation with Von Koren, he looked down and said sullenly: "I
can't agree with you. Either go with her or send her first; otherwise
. . . otherwise I won't give you the money. Those are my last
words. . ."

He staggered back, lurched backwards against the door, and went
into the drawing-room, crimson, and overcome with confusion.

"Friday . . . Friday," thought Laevsky, going back into the
drawing-room. "Friday. . . ."

He was handed a cup of chocolate; he burnt his lips and tongue with
the scalding chocolate and thought: "Friday . . . Friday. . . ."

For some reason he could not get the word "Friday" out of his head;
he could think of nothing but Friday, and the only thing that was
clear to him, not in his brain but somewhere in his heart, was that
he would not get off on Saturday. Before him stood Nikodim Alexandritch,
very neat, with his hair combed over his temples, saying:

"Please take something to eat. . . ."

Marya Konstantinovna showed the visitors Katya's school report and
said, drawling:

"It's very, very difficult to do well at school nowadays! So much
is expected . . ."

"Mamma!" groaned Katya, not knowing where to hide her confusion at
the praises of the company.

Laevsky, too, looked at the report and praised it. Scripture, Russian
language, conduct, fives and fours, danced before his eyes, and all
this, mixed with the haunting refrain of "Friday," with the carefully
combed locks of Nikodim Alexandritch and the red cheeks of Katya,
produced on him a sensation of such immense overwhelming boredom
that he almost shrieked with despair and asked himself: "Is it
possible, is it possible I shall not get away?"

They put two card tables side by side and sat down to play post.
Laevsky sat down too.

"Friday . . . Friday . . ." he kept thinking, as he smiled and took
a pencil out of his pocket. "Friday. . . ."

He wanted to think over his position, and was afraid to think. It
was terrible to him to realise that the doctor had detected him in
the deception which he had so long and carefully concealed from
himself. Every time he thought of his future he would not let his
thoughts have full rein. He would get into the train and set off,
and thereby the problem of his life would be solved, and he did not
let his thoughts go farther. Like a far-away dim light in the fields,
the thought sometimes flickered in his mind that in one of the
side-streets of Petersburg, in the remote future, he would have to
have recourse to a tiny lie in order to get rid of Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna and pay his debts; he would tell a lie only once, and
then a completely new life would begin. And that was right: at the
price of a small lie he would win so much truth.

Now when by his blunt refusal the doctor had crudely hinted at his
deception, he began to understand that he would need deception not
only in the remote future, but to-day, and to-morrow, and in a
month's time, and perhaps up to the very end of his life. In fact,
in order to get away he would have to lie to Nadyezhda Fyodorovna,
to his creditors, and to his superiors in the Service; then, in
order to get money in Petersburg, he would have to lie to his mother,
to tell her that he had already broken with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna;
and his mother would not give him more than five hundred roubles,
so he had already deceived the doctor, as he would not be in a
position to pay him back the money within a short time. Afterwards,
when Nadyezhda Fyodorovna came to Petersburg, he would have to
resort to a regular series of deceptions, little and big, in order
to get free of her; and again there would be tears, boredom, a
disgusting existence, remorse, and so there would be no new life.
Deception and nothing more. A whole mountain of lies rose before
Laevsky's imagination. To leap over it at one bound and not to do
his lying piecemeal, he would have to bring himself to stern,
uncompromising action; for instance, to getting up without saying
a word, putting on his hat, and at once setting off without money
and without explanation. But Laevsky felt that was impossible for
him.

"Friday, Friday . . ." he thought. "Friday. . . ."

They wrote little notes, folded them in two, and put them in Nikodim
Alexandritch's old top-hat. When there were a sufficient heap of
notes, Kostya, who acted the part of postman, walked round the table
and delivered them. The deacon, Katya, and Kostya, who received
amusing notes and tried to write as funnily as they could, were
highly delighted.

"We must have a little talk," Nadyezhda Fyodorovna read in a little
note; she glanced at Marya Konstantinovna, who gave her an almond-oily
smile and nodded.

"Talk of what?" thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna. "If one can't tell
the whole, it's no use talking."

Before going out for the evening she had tied Laevsky's cravat for
him, and that simple action filled her soul with tenderness and
sorrow. The anxiety in his face, his absent-minded looks, his pallor,
and the incomprehensible change that had taken place in him of late,
and the fact that she had a terrible revolting secret from him, and
the fact that her hands trembled when she tied his cravat--all
this seemed to tell her that they had not long left to be together.
She looked at him as though he were an ikon, with terror and
penitence, and thought: "Forgive, forgive."

Opposite her was sitting Atchmianov, and he never took his black,
love-sick eyes off her. She was stirred by passion; she was ashamed
of herself, and afraid that even her misery and sorrow would not
prevent her from yielding to impure desire to-morrow, if not to-day
--and that, like a drunkard, she would not have the strength to
stop herself.

She made up her mind to go away that she might not continue this
life, shameful for herself, and humiliating for Laevsky. She would
beseech him with tears to let her go; and if he opposed her, she
would go away secretly. She would not tell him what had happened;
let him keep a pure memory of her.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," she read. It was from Atchmianov.

She would live in some far remote place, would work and send Laevsky,
"anonymously," money, embroidered shirts, and tobacco, and would
return to him only in old age or if he were dangerously ill and
needed a nurse. When in his old age he learned what were her reasons
for leaving him and refusing to be his wife, he would appreciate
her sacrifice and forgive.

"You've got a long nose." That must be from the deacon or Kostya.

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna imagined how, parting from Laevsky, she would
embrace him warmly, would kiss his hand, and would swear to love
him all her life, all her life, and then, living in obscurity among
strangers, she would every day think that somewhere she had a friend,
some one she loved--a pure, noble, lofty man who kept a pure
memory of her.

"If you don't give me an interview to-day, I shall take measures,
I assure you on my word of honour. You can't treat decent people
like this; you must understand that." That was from Kirilin.

XIII

Laevsky received two notes; he opened one and read: "Don't go away,
my darling."

"Who could have written that?" he thought. "Not Samoylenko, of
course. And not the deacon, for he doesn't know I want to go away.
Von Koren, perhaps?"

The zoologist bent over the table and drew a pyramid. Laevsky fancied
that his eyes were smiling.

"Most likely Samoylenko . . . has been gossiping," thought Laevsky.

In the other note, in the same disguised angular handwriting with
long tails to the letters, was written: "Somebody won't go away on
Saturday."

"A stupid gibe," thought Laevsky. "Friday, Friday. . . ."

Something rose in his throat. He touched his collar and coughed,
but instead of a cough a laugh broke from his throat.

"Ha-ha-ha!" he laughed. "Ha-ha-ha! What am I laughing at? Ha-ha-ha!"

He tried to restrain himself, covered his mouth with his hand, but
the laugh choked his chest and throat, and his hand could not cover
his mouth.

"How stupid it is!" he thought, rolling with laughter. "Have I gone
out of my mind?"

The laugh grew shriller and shriller, and became something like the
bark of a lap-dog. Laevsky tried to get up from the table, but his
legs would not obey him and his right hand was strangely, without
his volition, dancing on the table, convulsively clutching and
crumpling up the bits of paper. He saw looks of wonder, Samoylenko's
grave, frightened face, and the eyes of the zoologist full of cold
irony and disgust, and realised that he was in hysterics.

"How hideous, how shameful!" he thought, feeling the warmth of tears
on his face. ". . . Oh, oh, what a disgrace! It has never happened
to me. . . ."

They took him under his arms, and supporting his head from behind,
led him away; a glass gleamed before his eyes and knocked against
his teeth, and the water was spilt on his breast; he was in a little
room, with two beds in the middle, side by side, covered by two
snow-white quilts. He dropped on one of the beds and sobbed.

"It's nothing, it's nothing," Samoylenko kept saying; "it does
happen . . . it does happen. . . ."

Chill with horror, trembling all over and dreading something awful,
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna stood by the bedside and kept asking:

"What is it? What is it? For God's sake, tell me."

"Can Kirilin have written him something?" she thought.

"It's nothing," said Laevsky, laughing and crying; "go away, darling."

His face expressed neither hatred nor repulsion: so he knew nothing;
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna was somewhat reassured, and she went into the
drawing-room.

"Don't agitate yourself, my dear!" said Marya Konstantinovna, sitting
down beside her and taking her hand. "It will pass. Men are just
as weak as we poor sinners. You are both going through a crisis. . . .
One can so well understand it! Well, my dear, I am waiting for
an answer. Let us have a little talk."

"No, we are not going to talk," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, listening
to Laevsky's sobs. "I feel depressed. . . . You must allow me to
go home."

"What do you mean, what do you mean, my dear?" cried Marya
Konstantinovna in alarm. "Do you think I could let you go without
supper? We will have something to eat, and then you may go with my
blessing."

"I feel miserable . . ." whispered Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and she
caught at the arm of the chair with both hands to avoid falling.

"He's got a touch of hysterics," said Von Koren gaily, coming into
the drawing-room, but seeing Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, he was taken
aback and retreated.

When the attack was over, Laevsky sat on the strange bed and thought.

"Disgraceful! I've been howling like some wretched girl! I must
have been absurd and disgusting. I will go away by the back stairs
. . . . But that would seem as though I took my hysterics too seriously.
I ought to take it as a joke. . . ."

He looked in the looking-glass, sat there for some time, and went
back into the drawing-room.

"Here I am," he said, smiling; he felt agonisingly ashamed, and he
felt others were ashamed in his presence. "Fancy such a thing
happening," he said, sitting down. "I was sitting here, and all of
a sudden, do you know, I felt a terrible piercing pain in my side
. . . unendurable, my nerves could not stand it, and . . . and it
led to this silly performance. This is the age of nerves; there is
no help for it."

At supper he drank some wine, and, from time to time, with an abrupt
sigh rubbed his side as though to suggest that he still felt the
pain. And no one, except Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, believed him, and
he saw that.

After nine o'clock they went for a walk on the boulevard. Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna, afraid that Kirilin would speak to her, did her best
to keep all the time beside Marya Konstantinovna and the children.
She felt weak with fear and misery, and felt she was going to be
feverish; she was exhausted and her legs would hardly move, but she
did not go home, because she felt sure that she would be followed
by Kirilin or Atchmianov or both at once. Kirilin walked behind her
with Nikodim Alexandritch, and kept humming in an undertone:

"I don't al-low people to play with me! I don't al-low it."

From the boulevard they went back to the pavilion and walked along
the beach, and looked for a long time at the phosphorescence on the
water. Von Koren began telling them why it looked phosphorescent.

XIV

"It's time I went to my _vint_. . . . They will be waiting for me,"
said Laevsky. "Good-bye, my friends."

"I'll come with you; wait a minute," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and
she took his arm.

They said good-bye to the company and went away. Kirilin took leave
too, and saying that he was going the same way, went along beside
them.

"What will be, will be," thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna. "So be
it. . . ."

And it seemed to her that all the evil memories in her head had
taken shape and were walking beside her in the darkness, breathing
heavily, while she, like a fly that had fallen into the inkpot, was
crawling painfully along the pavement and smirching Laevsky's side
and arm with blackness.

If Kirilin should do anything horrid, she thought, not he but she
would be to blame for it. There was a time when no man would have
talked to her as Kirilin had done, and she had torn up her security
like a thread and destroyed it irrevocably--who was to blame for
it? Intoxicated by her passions she had smiled at a complete stranger,
probably just because he was tall and a fine figure. After two
meetings she was weary of him, had thrown him over, and did not
that, she thought now, give him the right to treat her as he chose?

"Here I'll say good-bye to you, darling," said Laevsky. "Ilya
Mihalitch will see you home."

He nodded to Kirilin, and, quickly crossing the boulevard, walked
along the street to Sheshkovsky's, where there were lights in the
windows, and then they heard the gate bang as he went in.

"Allow me to have an explanation with you," said Kirilin. "I'm not
a boy, not some Atchkasov or Latchkasov, Zatchkasov. . . . I demand
serious attention."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's heart began beating violently. She made no
reply.

"The abrupt change in your behaviour to me I put down at first to
coquetry," Kirilin went on; "now I see that you don't know how to
behave with gentlemanly people. You simply wanted to play with me,
as you are playing with that wretched Armenian boy; but I'm a
gentleman and I insist on being treated like a gentleman. And so I
am at your service. . . ."

"I'm miserable," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna beginning to cry, and
to hide her tears she turned away.

"I'm miserable too," said Kirilin, "but what of that?"

Kirilin was silent for a space, then he said distinctly and
emphatically:

"I repeat, madam, that if you do not give me an interview this
evening, I'll make a scandal this very evening."

"Let me off this evening," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and she did
not recognise her own voice, it was so weak and pitiful.

"I must give you a lesson. . . . Excuse me for the roughness of my
tone, but it's necessary to give you a lesson. Yes, I regret to say
I must give you a lesson. I insist on two interviews--to-day and
to-morrow. After to-morrow you are perfectly free and can go wherever
you like with any one you choose. To-day and to-morrow."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna went up to her gate and stopped.

"Let me go," she murmured, trembling all over and seeing nothing
before her in the darkness but his white tunic. "You're right: I'm
a horrible woman. . . . I'm to blame, but let me go . . . I beg
you." She touched his cold hand and shuddered. "I beseech you. . . ."

"Alas!" sighed Kirilin, "alas! it's not part of my plan to let you
go; I only mean to give you a lesson and make you realise. And
what's more, madam, I've too little faith in women."

"I'm miserable. . . ."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna listened to the even splash of the sea, looked
at the sky studded with stars, and longed to make haste and end it
all, and get away from the cursed sensation of life, with its sea,
stars, men, fever.

"Only not in my home," she said coldly. "Take me somewhere else."

"Come to Muridov's. That's better."

"Where's that?"

"Near the old wall."

She walked quickly along the street and then turned into the
side-street that led towards the mountains. It was dark. There were
pale streaks of light here and there on the pavement, from the
lighted windows, and it seemed to her that, like a fly, she kept
falling into the ink and crawling out into the light again. At one
point he stumbled, almost fell down and burst out laughing.

"He's drunk," thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna. "Never mind. . . . Never
mind. . . . So be it."

Atchmianov, too, soon took leave of the party and followed Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna to ask her to go for a row. He went to her house and
looked over the fence: the windows were wide open, there were no
lights.

"Nadyezhda Fyodorovna!" he called.

A moment passed, he called again.

"Who's there?" he heard Olga's voice.

"Is Nadyezhda Fyodorovna at home?"

"No, she has not come in yet."

"Strange . . . very strange," thought Atchmianov, feeling very
uneasy. "She went home. . . ."

He walked along the boulevard, then along the street, and glanced
in at the windows of Sheshkovsky's. Laevsky was sitting at the table
without his coat on, looking attentively at his cards.

"Strange, strange," muttered Atchmianov, and remembering Laevsky's
hysterics, he felt ashamed. "If she is not at home, where is she?"

He went to Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's lodgings again, and looked at the
dark windows.

"It's a cheat, a cheat . . ." he thought, remembering that, meeting
him at midday at Marya Konstantinovna's, she had promised to go in
a boat with him that evening.

The windows of the house where Kirilin lived were dark, and there
was a policeman sitting asleep on a little bench at the gate.
Everything was clear to Atchmianov when he looked at the windows
and the policeman. He made up his mind to go home, and set off in
that direction, but somehow found himself near Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's
lodgings again. He sat down on the bench near the gate and took off
his hat, feeling that his head was burning with jealousy and
resentment.

The clock in the town church only struck twice in the twenty-four
hours--at midday and midnight. Soon after it struck midnight he
heard hurried footsteps.

"To-morrow evening, then, again at Muridov's," Atchmianov heard,
and he recognised Kirilin's voice. "At eight o'clock; good-bye!"

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna made her appearance near the garden. Without
noticing that Atchmianov was sitting on the bench, she passed beside
him like a shadow, opened the gate, and leaving it open, went into
the house. In her own room she lighted the candle and quickly
undressed, but instead of getting into bed, she sank on her knees
before a chair, flung her arms round it, and rested her head on it.

It was past two when Laevsky came home.

XV

Having made up his mind to lie, not all at once but piecemeal,
Laevsky went soon after one o'clock next day to Samoylenko to ask
for the money that he might be sure to get off on Saturday. After
his hysterical attack, which had added an acute feeling of shame
to his depressed state of mind, it was unthinkable to remain in the
town. If Samoylenko should insist on his conditions, he thought it
would be possible to agree to them and take the money, and next
day, just as he was starting, to say that Nadyezhda Fyodorovna
refused to go. He would be able to persuade her that evening that
the whole arrangement would be for her benefit. If Samoylenko, who
was obviously under the influence of Von Koren, should refuse the
money altogether or make fresh conditions, then he, Laevsky, would
go off that very evening in a cargo vessel, or even in a sailing-boat,
to Novy Athon or Novorossiisk, would send from there an humiliating
telegram, and would stay there till his mother sent him the money
for the journey.

When he went into Samoylenko's, he found Von Koren in the drawing-room.
The zoologist had just arrived for dinner, and, as usual, was turning
over the album and scrutinising the gentlemen in top-hats and the
ladies in caps.

"How very unlucky!" thought Laevsky, seeing him. "He may be in the
way. Good-morning."

"Good-morning," answered Von Koren, without looking at him.

"Is Alexandr Daviditch at home?"

"Yes, in the kitchen."

Laevsky went into the kitchen, but seeing from the door that
Samoylenko was busy over the salad, he went back into the drawing-room
and sat down. He always had a feeling of awkwardness in the zoologist's
presence, and now he was afraid there would be talk about his attack
of hysterics. There was more than a minute of silence. Von Koren
suddenly raised his eyes to Laevsky and asked:

"How do you feel after yesterday?"

"Very well indeed," said Laevsky, flushing. "It really was nothing
much. . . ."

"Until yesterday I thought it was only ladies who had hysterics,
and so at first I thought you had St. Vitus's dance."

Laevsky smiled ingratiatingly, and thought:

"How indelicate on his part! He knows quite well how unpleasant it
is for me. . . ."

"Yes, it was a ridiculous performance," he said, still smiling.
"I've been laughing over it the whole morning. What's so curious
in an attack of hysterics is that you know it is absurd, and are
laughing at it in your heart, and at the same time you sob. In our
neurotic age we are the slaves of our nerves; they are our masters
and do as they like with us. Civilisation has done us a bad turn
in that way. . . ."

As Laevsky talked, he felt it disagreeable that Von Koren listened
to him gravely, and looked at him steadily and attentively as though
studying him; and he was vexed with himself that in spite of his
dislike of Von Koren, he could not banish the ingratiating smile
from his face.

"I must admit, though," he added, "that there were immediate causes
for the attack, and quite sufficient ones too. My health has been
terribly shaky of late. To which one must add boredom, constantly
being hard up . . . the absence of people and general interests
. . . . My position is worse than a governor's."

"Yes, your position is a hopeless one," answered Von Koren.

These calm, cold words, implying something between a jeer and an
uninvited prediction, offended Laevsky. He recalled the zoologist's
eyes the evening before, full of mockery and disgust. He was silent
for a space and then asked, no longer smiling:

"How do you know anything of my position?"

"You were only just speaking of it yourself. Besides, your friends
take such a warm interest in you, that I am hearing about you all
day long."

"What friends? Samoylenko, I suppose?"

"Yes, he too."

"I would ask Alexandr Daviditch and my friends in general not to
trouble so much about me."

"Here is Samoylenko; you had better ask him not to trouble so much
about you."

"I don't understand your tone," Laevsky muttered, suddenly feeling
as though he had only just realised that the zoologist hated and
despised him, and was jeering at him, and was his bitterest and
most inveterate enemy.

"Keep that tone for some one else," he said softly, unable to speak
aloud for the hatred with which his chest and throat were choking,
as they had been the night before with laughter.

Samoylenko came in in his shirt-sleeves, crimson and perspiring
from the stifling kitchen.

"Ah, you here?" he said. "Good-morning, my dear boy. Have you had
dinner? Don't stand on ceremony. Have you had dinner?"

"Alexandr Daviditch," said Laevsky, standing up, "though I did
appeal to you to help me in a private matter, it did not follow
that I released you from the obligation of discretion and respect
for other people's private affairs."

"What's this?" asked Samoylenko, in astonishment.

"If you have no money," Laevsky went on, raising his voice and
shifting from one foot to the other in his excitement, "don't give
it; refuse it. But why spread abroad in every back street that my
position is hopeless, and all the rest of it? I can't endure such
benevolence and friend's assistance where there's a shilling-worth
of talk for a ha'p'orth of help! You can boast of your benevolence
as much as you please, but no one has given you the right to gossip
about my private affairs!"

"What private affairs?" asked Samoylenko, puzzled and beginning to
be angry. "If you've come here to be abusive, you had better clear
out. You can come again afterwards!"

He remembered the rule that when one is angry with one's neighbour,
one must begin to count a hundred, and one will grow calm again;
and he began rapidly counting.

"I beg you not to trouble yourself about me," Laevsky went on.
"Don't pay any attention to me, and whose business is it what I do
and how I live? Yes, I want to go away. Yes, I get into debt, I
drink, I am living with another man's wife, I'm hysterical, I'm
ordinary. I am not so profound as some people, but whose business
is that? Respect other people's privacy."

"Excuse me, brother," said Samoylenko, who had counted up to
thirty-five, "but . . ."

"Respect other people's individuality!" interrupted Laevsky. "This
continual gossip about other people's affairs, this sighing and
groaning and everlasting prying, this eavesdropping, this friendly
sympathy . . . damn it all! They lend me money and make conditions
as though I were a schoolboy! I am treated as the devil knows what!
I don't want anything," shouted Laevsky, staggering with excitement
and afraid that it might end in another attack of hysterics. "I
shan't get away on Saturday, then," flashed through his mind. "I
want nothing. All I ask of you is to spare me your protecting care.
I'm not a boy, and I'm not mad, and I beg you to leave off looking
after me."

The deacon came in, and seeing Laevsky pale and gesticulating,
addressing his strange speech to the portrait of Prince Vorontsov,
stood still by the door as though petrified.

"This continual prying into my soul," Laevsky went on, "is insulting
to my human dignity, and I beg these volunteer detectives to give
up their spying! Enough!"

"What's that . . . what did you say?" said Samoylenko, who had
counted up to a hundred. He turned crimson and went up to Laevsky.

"It's enough," said Laevsky, breathing hard and snatching up his
cap.

"I'm a Russian doctor, a nobleman by birth, and a civil councillor,"
said Samoylenko emphatically. "I've never been a spy, and I allow
no one to insult me!" he shouted in a breaking voice, emphasising
the last word. "Hold your tongue!"

The deacon, who had never seen the doctor so majestic, so swelling
with dignity, so crimson and so ferocious, shut his mouth, ran out
into the entry and there exploded with laughter.

As though through a fog, Laevsky saw Von Koren get up and, putting
his hands in his trouser-pockets, stand still in an attitude of
expectancy, as though waiting to see what would happen. This calm
attitude struck Laevsky as insolent and insulting to the last degree.

"Kindly take back your words," shouted Samoylenko.

Laevsky, who did not by now remember what his words were, answered:

"Leave me alone! I ask for nothing. All I ask is that you and German
upstarts of Jewish origin should let me alone! Or I shall take steps
to make you! I will fight you!"

"Now we understand," said Von Koren, coming from behind the table.
"Mr. Laevsky wants to amuse himself with a duel before he goes away.
I can give him that pleasure. Mr. Laevsky, I accept your challenge."

"A challenge," said Laevsky, in a low voice, going up to the zoologist
and looking with hatred at his swarthy brow and curly hair. "A
challenge? By all means! I hate you! I hate you!"

"Delighted. To-morrow morning early near Kerbalay's. I leave all
details to your taste. And now, clear out!"

"I hate you," Laevsky said softly, breathing hard. "I have hated
you a long while! A duel! Yes!"

"Get rid of him, Alexandr Daviditch, or else I'm going," said Von
Koren. "He'll bite me."

Von Koren's cool tone calmed the doctor; he seemed suddenly to come
to himself, to recover his reason; he put both arms round Laevsky's
waist, and, leading him away from the zoologist, muttered in a
friendly voice that shook with emotion:

"My friends . . . dear, good . . . you've lost your tempers and
that's enough . . . and that's enough, my friends."

Hearing his soft, friendly voice, Laevsky felt that something unheard
of, monstrous, had just happened to him, as though he had been
nearly run over by a train; he almost burst into tears, waved his
hand, and ran out of the room.

"To feel that one is hated, to expose oneself before the man who
hates one, in the most pitiful, contemptible, helpless state. My
God, how hard it is!" he thought a little while afterwards as he
sat in the pavilion, feeling as though his body were scarred by the
hatred of which he had just been the object.

"How coarse it is, my God!"

Cold water with brandy in it revived him. He vividly pictured Von
Koren's calm, haughty face; his eyes the day before, his shirt like
a rug, his voice, his white hand; and heavy, passionate, hungry
hatred rankled in his breast and clamoured for satisfaction. In his
thoughts he felled Von Koren to the ground, and trampled him
underfoot. He remembered to the minutest detail all that had happened,
and wondered how he could have smiled ingratiatingly to that
insignificant man, and how he could care for the opinion of wretched
petty people whom nobody knew, living in a miserable little town
which was not, it seemed, even on the map, and of which not one
decent person in Petersburg had heard. If this wretched little town
suddenly fell into ruins or caught fire, the telegram with the news
would be read in Russia with no more interest than an advertisement
of the sale of second-hand furniture. Whether he killed Von Koren
next day or left him alive, it would be just the same, equally
useless and uninteresting. Better to shoot him in the leg or hand,
wound him, then laugh at him, and let him, like an insect with a
broken leg lost in the grass--let him be lost with his obscure
sufferings in the crowd of insignificant people like himself.

Laevsky went to Sheshkovsky, told him all about it, and asked him
to be his second; then they both went to the superintendent of the
postal telegraph department, and asked him, too, to be a second,
and stayed to dinner with him. At dinner there was a great deal of
joking and laughing. Laevsky made jests at his own expense, saying
he hardly knew how to fire off a pistol, calling himself a royal
archer and William Tell.

"We must give this gentleman a lesson . . ." he said.

After dinner they sat down to cards. Laevsky played, drank wine,
and thought that duelling was stupid and senseless, as it did not
decide the question but only complicated it, but that it was sometimes
impossible to get on without it. In the given case, for instance,
one could not, of course, bring an action against Von Koren. And
this duel was so far good in that it made it impossible for Laevsky
to remain in the town afterwards. He got a little drunk and interested
in the game, and felt at ease.

But when the sun had set and it grew dark, he was possessed by a
feeling of uneasiness. It was not fear at the thought of death,
because while he was dining and playing cards, he had for some
reason a confident belief that the duel would end in nothing; it
was dread at the thought of something unknown which was to happen
next morning for the first time in his life, and dread of the coming
night. . . . He knew that the night would be long and sleepless,
and that he would have to think not only of Von Koren and his hatred,
but also of the mountain of lies which he had to get through, and
which he had not strength or ability to dispense with. It was as
though he had been taken suddenly ill; all at once he lost all
interest in the cards and in people, grew restless, and began asking
them to let him go home. He was eager to get into bed, to lie without
moving, and to prepare his thoughts for the night. Sheshkovsky and
the postal superintendent saw him home and went on to Von Koren's
to arrange about the duel.

Near his lodgings Laevsky met Atchmianov. The young man was breathless
and excited.

"I am looking for you, Ivan Andreitch," he said. "I beg you to come
quickly. . . ."

"Where?"

"Some one wants to see you, some one you don't know, about very
important business; he earnestly begs you to come for a minute. He
wants to speak to you of something. . . . For him it's a question
of life and death. . . ." In his excitement Atchmianov spoke in a
strong Armenian accent.

"Who is it?" asked Laevsky.

"He asked me not to tell you his name."

"Tell him I'm busy; to-morrow, if he likes. . . ."

"How can you!" Atchmianov was aghast. "He wants to tell you something
very important for you . . . very important! If you don't come,
something dreadful will happen."

"Strange . . ." muttered Laevsky, unable to understand why Atchmianov
was so excited and what mysteries there could be in this dull,
useless little town.

"Strange," he repeated in hesitation. "Come along, though; I don't
care."

Atchmianov walked rapidly on ahead and Laevsky followed him. They
walked down a street, then turned into an alley.

"What a bore this is!" said Laevsky.

"One minute, one minute . . . it's near."

Near the old rampart they went down a narrow alley between two empty
enclosures, then they came into a sort of large yard and went towards
a small house.

"That's Muridov's, isn't it?" asked Laevsky.

"Yes."

"But why we've come by the back yards I don't understand. We might
have come by the street; it's nearer. . . ."

"Never mind, never mind. . . ."

It struck Laevsky as strange, too, that Atchmianov led him to a
back entrance, and motioned to him as though bidding him go quietly
and hold his tongue.

"This way, this way . . ." said Atchmianov, cautiously opening the
door and going into the passage on tiptoe. "Quietly, quietly, I beg
you . . . they may hear."

He listened, drew a deep breath and said in a whisper:

"Open that door, and go in . . . don't be afraid."

Laevsky, puzzled, opened the door and went into a room with a low
ceiling and curtained windows.

There was a candle on the table.

"What do you want?" asked some one in the next room. "Is it you,
Muridov?"

Laevsky turned into that room and saw Kirilin, and beside him
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna.

He didn't hear what was said to him; he staggered back, and did not
know how he found himself in the street. His hatred for Von Koren
and his uneasiness--all had vanished from his soul. As he went
home he waved his right arm awkwardly and looked carefully at the
ground under his feet, trying to step where it was smooth. At home
in his study he walked backwards and forwards, rubbing his hands,
and awkwardly shrugging his shoulders and neck, as though his jacket
and shirt were too tight; then he lighted a candle and sat down to
the table. . . .

XVI

"The 'humane studies' of which you speak will only satisfy human
thought when, as they advance, they meet the exact sciences and
progress side by side with them. Whether they will meet under a new
microscope, or in the monologues of a new Hamlet, or in a new
religion, I do not know, but I expect the earth will be covered
with a crust of ice before it comes to pass. Of all humane learning
the most durable and living is, of course, the teaching of Christ;
but look how differently even that is interpreted! Some teach that
we must love all our neighbours but make an exception of soldiers,
criminals, and lunatics. They allow the first to be killed in war,
the second to be isolated or executed, and the third they forbid
to marry. Other interpreters teach that we must love all our
neighbours without exception, with no distinction of _plus_ or
_minus_. According to their teaching, if a consumptive or a murderer
or an epileptic asks your daughter in marriage, you must let him
have her. If _cretins_ go to war against the physically and mentally
healthy, don't defend yourselves. This advocacy of love for love's
sake, like art for art's sake, if it could have power, would bring
mankind in the long run to complete extinction, and so would become
the vastest crime that has ever been committed upon earth. There
are very many interpretations, and since there are many of them,
serious thought is not satisfied by any one of them, and hastens
to add its own individual interpretation to the mass. For that
reason you should never put a question on a philosophical or so-called
Christian basis; by so doing you only remove the question further
from solution."

The deacon listened to the zoologist attentively, thought a little,
and asked:

"Have the philosophers invented the moral law which is innate in
every man, or did God create it together with the body?"

"I don't know. But that law is so universal among all peoples and
all ages that I fancy we ought to recognise it as organically
connected with man. It is not invented, but exists and will exist.
I don't tell you that one day it will be seen under the microscope,
but its organic connection is shown, indeed, by evidence: serious
affections of the brain and all so-called mental diseases, to the
best of my belief, show themselves first of all in the perversion
of the moral law."

"Good. So then, just as our stomach bids us eat, our moral sense
bids us love our neighbours. Is that it? But our natural man through
self-love opposes the voice of conscience and reason, and this gives
rise to many brain-racking questions. To whom ought we to turn for
the solution of those questions if you forbid us to put them on the
philosophic basis?"

"Turn to what little exact science we have. Trust to evidence and
the logic of facts. It is true it is but little, but, on the other
hand, it is less fluid and shifting than philosophy. The moral law,
let us suppose, demands that you love your neighbour. Well? Love
ought to show itself in the removal of everything which in one way
or another is injurious to men and threatens them with danger in
the present or in the future. Our knowledge and the evidence tells
us that the morally and physically abnormal are a menace to humanity.
If so you must struggle against the abnormal; if you are not able
to raise them to the normal standard you must have strength and
ability to render them harmless--that is, to destroy them."

"So love consists in the strong overcoming the weak."

"Undoubtedly."

"But you know the strong crucified our Lord Jesus Christ," said the
deacon hotly.

"The fact is that those who crucified Him were not the strong but
the weak. Human culture weakens and strives to nullify the struggle
for existence and natural selection; hence the rapid advancement
of the weak and their predominance over the strong. Imagine that
you succeeded in instilling into bees humanitarian ideas in their
crude and elementary form. What would come of it? The drones who
ought to be killed would remain alive, would devour the honey, would
corrupt and stifle the bees, resulting in the predominance of the
weak over the strong and the degeneration of the latter. The same
process is taking place now with humanity; the weak are oppressing
the strong. Among savages untouched by civilisation the strongest,
cleverest, and most moral takes the lead; he is the chief and the
master. But we civilised men have crucified Christ, and we go on
crucifying Him, so there is something lacking in us. . . . And that
something one ought to raise up in ourselves, or there will be no
end to these errors."

"But what criterion have you to distinguish the strong from the
weak?"

"Knowledge and evidence. The tuberculous and the scrofulous are
recognised by their diseases, and the insane and the immoral by
their actions."

"But mistakes may be made!"

"Yes, but it's no use to be afraid of getting your feet wet when
you are threatened with the deluge!"

"That's philosophy," laughed the deacon.

"Not a bit of it. You are so corrupted by your seminary philosophy
that you want to see nothing but fog in everything. The abstract
studies with which your youthful head is stuffed are called abstract
just because they abstract your minds from what is obvious. Look
the devil straight in the eye, and if he's the devil, tell him he's
the devil, and don't go calling to Kant or Hegel for explanations."

The zoologist paused and went on:

"Twice two's four, and a stone's a stone. Here to-morrow we have a
duel. You and I will say it's stupid and absurd, that the duel is
out of date, that there is no real difference between the aristocratic
duel and the drunken brawl in the pot-house, and yet we shall not
stop, we shall go there and fight. So there is some force stronger
than our reasoning. We shout that war is plunder, robbery, atrocity,
fratricide; we cannot look upon blood without fainting; but the
French or the Germans have only to insult us for us to feel at once
an exaltation of spirit; in the most genuine way we shout 'Hurrah!'
and rush to attack the foe. You will invoke the blessing of God on
our weapons, and our valour will arouse universal and general
enthusiasm. Again it follows that there is a force, if not higher,
at any rate stronger, than us and our philosophy. We can no more
stop it than that cloud which is moving upwards over the sea. Don't
be hypocritical, don't make a long nose at it on the sly; and don't
say, 'Ah, old-fashioned, stupid! Ah, it's inconsistent with Scripture!'
but look it straight in the face, recognise its rational lawfulness,
and when, for instance, it wants to destroy a rotten, scrofulous,
corrupt race, don't hinder it with your pilules and misunderstood
quotations from the Gospel. Leskov has a story of a conscientious
Danila who found a leper outside the town, and fed and warmed him
in the name of love and of Christ. If that Danila had really loved
humanity, he would have dragged the leper as far as possible from
the town, and would have flung him in a pit, and would have gone
to save the healthy. Christ, I hope, taught us a rational, intelligent,
practical love."

"What a fellow you are!" laughed the deacon. "You don't believe in
Christ. Why do you mention His name so often?"

"Yes, I do believe in Him. Only, of course, in my own way, not in
yours. Oh, deacon, deacon!" laughed the zoologist; he put his arm
round the deacon's waist, and said gaily: "Well? Are you coming
with us to the duel to-morrow?"

"My orders don't allow it, or else I should come."

"What do you mean by 'orders'?"

"I have been consecrated. I am in a state of grace."

"Oh, deacon, deacon," repeated Von Koren, laughing, "I love talking
to you."

"You say you have faith," said the deacon. "What sort of faith is
it? Why, I have an uncle, a priest, and he believes so that when
in time of drought he goes out into the fields to pray for rain,
he takes his umbrella and leather overcoat for fear of getting wet
through on his way home. That's faith! When he speaks of Christ,
his face is full of radiance, and all the peasants, men and women,
weep floods of tears. He would stop that cloud and put all those
forces you talk about to flight. Yes . . . faith moves mountains."

The deacon laughed and slapped the zoologist on the shoulder.

"Yes . . ." he went on; "here you are teaching all the time, fathoming
the depths of the ocean, dividing the weak and the strong, writing
books and challenging to duels--and everything remains as it is;
but, behold! some feeble old man will mutter just one word with a
holy spirit, or a new Mahomet, with a sword, will gallop from Arabia,
and everything will be topsy-turvy, and in Europe not one stone
will be left standing upon another."

"Well, deacon, that's on the knees of the gods."

"Faith without works is dead, but works without faith are worse
still--mere waste of time and nothing more."

The doctor came into sight on the sea-front. He saw the deacon and
the zoologist, and went up to them.

"I believe everything is ready," he said, breathing hard. "Govorovsky
and Boyko will be the seconds. They will start at five o'clock in
the morning. How it has clouded over," he said, looking at the sky.
"One can see nothing; there will be rain directly."

"I hope you are coming with us?" said the zoologist.

"No, God preserve me; I'm worried enough as it is. Ustimovitch is
going instead of me. I've spoken to him already."

Far over the sea was a flash of lightning, followed by a hollow
roll of thunder.

"How stifling it is before a storm!" said Von Koren. "I bet you've
been to Laevsky already and have been weeping on his bosom."

"Why should I go to him?" answered the doctor in confusion. "What
next?"

Before sunset he had walked several times along the boulevard and
the street in the hope of meeting Laevsky. He was ashamed of his
hastiness and the sudden outburst of friendliness which had followed
it. He wanted to apologise to Laevsky in a joking tone, to give him
a good talking to, to soothe him and to tell him that the duel was
a survival of mediaeval barbarism, but that Providence itself had
brought them to the duel as a means of reconciliation; that the
next day, both being splendid and highly intelligent people, they
would, after exchanging shots, appreciate each other's noble qualities
and would become friends. But he could not come across Laevsky.

"What should I go and see him for?" repeated Samoylenko. "I did not
insult him; he insulted me. Tell me, please, why he attacked me.
What harm had I done him? I go into the drawing-room, and, all of
a sudden, without the least provocation: 'Spy!' There's a nice
thing! Tell me, how did it begin? What did you say to him?"

"I told him his position was hopeless. And I was right. It is only
honest men or scoundrels who can find an escape from any position,
but one who wants to be at the same time an honest man and a scoundrel
--it is a hopeless position. But it's eleven o'clock, gentlemen,
and we have to be up early to-morrow."

There was a sudden gust of wind; it blew up the dust on the sea-front,
whirled it round in eddies, with a howl that drowned the roar of
the sea.

"A squall," said the deacon. "We must go in, our eyes are getting
full of dust."

As they went, Samoylenko sighed and, holding his hat, said:

"I suppose I shan't sleep to-night."

"Don't you agitate yourself," laughed the zoologist. "You can set
your mind at rest; the duel will end in nothing. Laevsky will
magnanimously fire into the air--he can do nothing else; and I
daresay I shall not fire at all. To be arrested and lose my time
on Laevsky's account--the game's not worth the candle. By the
way, what is the punishment for duelling?"

"Arrest, and in the case of the death of your opponent a maximum
of three years' imprisonment in the fortress."

"The fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul?"

"No, in a military fortress, I believe."

"Though this fine gentleman ought to have a lesson!"

Behind them on the sea, there was a flash of lightning, which for
an instant lighted up the roofs of the houses and the mountains.
The friends parted near the boulevard. When the doctor disappeared
in the darkness and his steps had died away, Von Koren shouted to
him:

"I only hope the weather won't interfere with us to-morrow!"

"Very likely it will! Please God it may!"

"Good-night!"

"What about the night? What do you say?"

In the roar of the wind and the sea and the crashes of thunder, it
was difficult to hear.

"It's nothing," shouted the zoologist, and hurried home.

XVII

             "Upon my mind, weighed down with woe,
              Crowd thoughts, a heavy multitude:
              In silence memory unfolds
              Her long, long scroll before my eyes.
              Loathing and shuddering I curse
              And bitterly lament in vain,
              And bitter though the tears I weep
              I do not wash those lines away."

                                      PUSHKIN.

Whether they killed him next morning, or mocked at him--that is,
left him his life--he was ruined, anyway. Whether this disgraced
woman killed herself in her shame and despair, or dragged on her
pitiful existence, she was ruined anyway.

So thought Laevsky as he sat at the table late in the evening, still
rubbing his hands. The windows suddenly blew open with a bang; a
violent gust of wind burst into the room, and the papers fluttered
from the table. Laevsky closed the windows and bent down to pick
up the papers. He was aware of something new in his body, a sort
of awkwardness he had not felt before, and his movements were strange
to him. He moved timidly, jerking with his elbows and shrugging his
shoulders; and when he sat down to the table again, he again began
rubbing his hands. His body had lost its suppleness.

On the eve of death one ought to write to one's nearest relation.
Laevsky thought of this. He took a pen and wrote with a tremulous
hand:

"Mother!"

He wanted to write to beg his mother, for the sake of the merciful
God in whom she believed, that she would give shelter and bring a
little warmth and kindness into the life of the unhappy woman who,
by his doing, had been disgraced and was in solitude, poverty, and
weakness, that she would forgive and forget everything, everything,
everything, and by her sacrifice atone to some extent for her son's
terrible sin. But he remembered how his mother, a stout, heavily-built
old woman in a lace cap, used to go out into the garden in the
morning, followed by her companion with the lap-dog; how she used
to shout in a peremptory way to the gardener and the servants, and
how proud and haughty her face was--he remembered all this and
scratched out the word he had written.

There was a vivid flash of lightning at all three windows, and it
was followed by a prolonged, deafening roll of thunder, beginning
with a hollow rumble and ending with a crash so violent that all
the window-panes rattled. Laevsky got up, went to the window, and
pressed his forehead against the pane. There was a fierce, magnificent
storm. On the horizon lightning-flashes were flung in white streams
from the storm-clouds into the sea, lighting up the high, dark waves
over the far-away expanse. And to right and to left, and, no doubt,
over the house too, the lightning flashed.

"The storm!" whispered Laevsky; he had a longing to pray to some
one or to something, if only to the lightning or the storm-clouds.
"Dear storm!"

He remembered how as a boy he used to run out into the garden without
a hat on when there was a storm, and how two fair-haired girls with
blue eyes used to run after him, and how they got wet through with
the rain; they laughed with delight, but when there was a loud peal
of thunder, the girls used to nestle up to the boy confidingly,
while he crossed himself and made haste to repeat: "Holy, holy,
holy. . . ." Oh, where had they vanished to! In what sea were they
drowned, those dawning days of pure, fair life? He had no fear of
the storm, no love of nature now; he had no God. All the confiding
girls he had ever known had by now been ruined by him and those
like him. All his life he had not planted one tree in his own garden,
nor grown one blade of grass; and living among the living, he had
not saved one fly; he had done nothing but destroy and ruin, and
lie, lie. . . .

"What in my past was not vice?" he asked himself, trying to clutch
at some bright memory as a man falling down a precipice clutches
at the bushes.

School? The university? But that was a sham. He had neglected his
work and forgotten what he had learnt. The service of his country?
That, too, was a sham, for he did nothing in the Service, took a
salary for doing nothing, and it was an abominable swindling of the
State for which one was not punished.

He had no craving for truth, and had not sought it; spellbound by
vice and lying, his conscience had slept or been silent. Like a
stranger, like an alien from another planet, he had taken no part
in the common life of men, had been indifferent to their sufferings,
their ideas, their religion, their sciences, their strivings, and
their struggles. He had not said one good word, not written one
line that was not useless and vulgar; he had not done his fellows
one ha'p'orth of service, but had eaten their bread, drunk their
wine, seduced their wives, lived on their thoughts, and to justify
his contemptible, parasitic life in their eyes and in his own, he
had always tried to assume an air of being higher and better than
they. Lies, lies, lies. . . .

He vividly remembered what he had seen that evening at Muridov's,
and he was in an insufferable anguish of loathing and misery. Kirilin
and Atchmianov were loathsome, but they were only continuing what
he had begun; they were his accomplices and his disciples. This
young weak woman had trusted him more than a brother, and he had
deprived her of her husband, of her friends and of her country, and
had brought her here--to the heat, to fever, and to boredom; and
from day to day she was bound to reflect, like a mirror, his idleness,
his viciousness and falsity--and that was all she had had to fill
her weak, listless, pitiable life. Then he had grown sick of her,
had begun to hate her, but had not had the pluck to abandon her,
and he had tried to entangle her more and more closely in a web of
lies. . . . These men had done the rest.

Laevsky sat at the table, then got up and went to the window; at
one minute he put out the candle and then he lighted it again. He
cursed himself aloud, wept and wailed, and asked forgiveness; several
times he ran to the table in despair, and wrote:

"Mother!"

Except his mother, he had no relations or near friends; but how
could his mother help him? And where was she? He had an impulse to
run to Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, to fall at her feet, to kiss her hands
and feet, to beg her forgiveness; but she was his victim, and he
was afraid of her as though she were dead.

"My life is ruined," he repeated, rubbing his hands. "Why am I still
alive, my God! . . ."

He had cast out of heaven his dim star; it had fallen, and its track
was lost in the darkness of night. It would never return to the sky
again, because life was given only once and never came a second
time. If he could have turned back the days and years of the past,
he would have replaced the falsity with truth, the idleness with
work, the boredom with happiness; he would have given back purity
to those whom he had robbed of it. He would have found God and
goodness, but that was as impossible as to put back the fallen star
into the sky, and because it was impossible he was in despair.

When the storm was over, he sat by the open window and thought
calmly of what was before him. Von Koren would most likely kill
him. The man's clear, cold theory of life justified the destruction
of the rotten and the useless; if it changed at the crucial moment,
it would be the hatred and the repugnance that Laevsky inspired in
him that would save him. If he missed his aim or, in mockery of his
hated opponent, only wounded him, or fired in the air, what could
he do then? Where could he go?

"Go to Petersburg?" Laevsky asked himself. But that would mean
beginning over again the old life which he cursed. And the man who
seeks salvation in change of place like a migrating bird would find
nothing anywhere, for all the world is alike to him. Seek salvation
in men? In whom and how? Samoylenko's kindness and generosity could
no more save him than the deacon's laughter or Von Koren's hatred.
He must look for salvation in himself alone, and if there were no
finding it, why waste time? He must kill himself, that was
all. . . .

He heard the sound of a carriage. It was getting light. The carriage
passed by, turned, and crunching on the wet sand, stopped near the
house. There were two men in the carriage.

"Wait a minute; I'm coming directly," Laevsky said to them out of
the window. "I'm not asleep. Surely it's not time yet?"

"Yes, it's four o'clock. By the time we get there . . . ."

Laevsky put on his overcoat and cap, put some cigarettes in his
pocket, and stood still hesitating. He felt as though there was
something else he must do. In the street the seconds talked in low
voices and the horses snorted, and this sound in the damp, early
morning, when everybody was asleep and light was hardly dawning in
the sky, filled Laevsky's soul with a disconsolate feeling which
was like a presentiment of evil. He stood for a little, hesitating,
and went into the bedroom.

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna was lying stretched out on the bed, wrapped
from head to foot in a rug. She did not stir, and her whole appearance,
especially her head, suggested an Egyptian mummy. Looking at her
in silence, Laevsky mentally asked her forgiveness, and thought
that if the heavens were not empty and there really were a God,
then He would save her; if there were no God, then she had better
perish--there was nothing for her to live for.

All at once she jumped up, and sat up in bed. Lifting her pale face
and looking with horror at Laevsky, she asked:

"Is it you? Is the storm over?"

"Yes."

She remembered; put both hands to her head and shuddered all over.

"How miserable I am!" she said. "If only you knew how miserable I
am! I expected," she went on, half closing her eyes, "that you would
kill me or turn me out of the house into the rain and storm, but
you delay . . . delay . . ."

Warmly and impulsively he put his arms round her and covered her
knees and hands with kisses. Then when she muttered something and
shuddered with the thought of the past, he stroked her hair, and
looking into her face, realised that this unhappy, sinful woman was
the one creature near and dear to him, whom no one could replace.

When he went out of the house and got into the carriage he wanted
to return home alive.

XVIII

The deacon got up, dressed, took his thick, gnarled stick and slipped
quietly out of the house. It was dark, and for the first minute
when he went into the street, he could not even see his white stick.
There was not a single star in the sky, and it looked as though
there would be rain again. There was a smell of wet sand and sea.

"It's to be hoped that the mountaineers won't attack us," thought
the deacon, hearing the tap of the stick on the pavement, and
noticing how loud and lonely the taps sounded in the stillness of
the night.

When he got out of town, he began to see both the road and his
stick. Here and there in the black sky there were dark cloudy
patches, and soon a star peeped out and timidly blinked its one
eye. The deacon walked along the high rocky coast and did not see
the sea; it was slumbering below, and its unseen waves broke languidly
and heavily on the shore, as though sighing "Ouf!" and how slowly!
One wave broke--the deacon had time to count eight steps; then
another broke, and six steps; later a third. As before, nothing
could be seen, and in the darkness one could hear the languid,
drowsy drone of the sea. One could hear the infinitely faraway,
inconceivable time when God moved above chaos.

The deacon felt uncanny. He hoped God would not punish him for
keeping company with infidels, and even going to look at their
duels. The duel would be nonsensical, bloodless, absurd, but however
that might be, it was a heathen spectacle, and it was altogether
unseemly for an ecclesiastical person to be present at it. He stopped
and wondered--should he go back? But an intense, restless curiosity
triumphed over his doubts, and he went on.

"Though they are infidels they are good people, and will be saved,"
he assured himself. "They are sure to be saved," he said aloud,
lighting a cigarette.

By what standard must one measure men's qualities, to judge rightly
of them? The deacon remembered his enemy, the inspector of the
clerical school, who believed in God, lived in chastity, and did
not fight duels; but he used to feed the deacon on bread with sand
in it, and on one occasion almost pulled off the deacon's ear. If
human life was so artlessly constructed that every one respected
this cruel and dishonest inspector who stole the Government flour,
and his health and salvation were prayed for in the schools, was
it just to shun such men as Von Koren and Laevsky, simply because
they were unbelievers? The deacon was weighing this question, but
he recalled how absurd Samoylenko had looked yesterday, and that
broke the thread of his ideas. What fun they would have next day!
The deacon imagined how he would sit under a bush and look on, and
when Von Koren began boasting next day at dinner, he, the deacon,
would begin laughing and telling him all the details of the duel.

"How do you know all about it?" the zoologist would ask.

"Well, there you are! I stayed at home, but I know all about it."

It would be nice to write a comic description of the duel. His
father-in-law would read it and laugh. A good story, told or written,
was more than meat and drink to his father-in-law.

The valley of the Yellow River opened before him. The stream was
broader and fiercer for the rain, and instead of murmuring as before,
it was raging. It began to get light. The grey, dingy morning, and
the clouds racing towards the west to overtake the storm-clouds,
the mountains girt with mist, and the wet trees, all struck the
deacon as ugly and sinister. He washed at the brook, repeated his
morning prayer, and felt a longing for tea and hot rolls, with sour
cream, which were served every morning at his father-in-law's. He
remembered his wife and the "Days past Recall," which she played
on the piano. What sort of woman was she? His wife had been introduced,
betrothed, and married to him all in one week: he had lived with
her less than a month when he was ordered here, so that he had not
had time to find out what she was like. All the same, he rather
missed her.

"I must write her a nice letter . . ." he thought. The flag on the
_duhan_ hung limp, soaked by the rain, and the _duhan_ itself with
its wet roof seemed darker and lower than it had been before. Near
the door was standing a cart; Kerbalay, with two mountaineers and
a young Tatar woman in trousers--no doubt Kerbalay's wife or
daughter--were bringing sacks of something out of the _duhan_,
and putting them on maize straw in the cart.

Near the cart stood a pair of asses hanging their heads. When they
had put in all the sacks, the mountaineers and the Tatar woman began
covering them over with straw, while Kerbalay began hurriedly
harnessing the asses.

"Smuggling, perhaps," thought the deacon.

Here was the fallen tree with the dried pine-needles, here was the
blackened patch from the fire. He remembered the picnic and all its
incidents, the fire, the singing of the mountaineers, his sweet
dreams of becoming a bishop, and of the Church procession. . . .
The Black River had grown blacker and broader with the rain. The
deacon walked cautiously over the narrow bridge, which by now was
reached by the topmost crests of the dirty water, and went up through
the little copse to the drying-shed.

"A splendid head," he thought, stretching himself on the straw, and
thinking of Von Koren. "A fine head--God grant him health; only
there is cruelty in him. . . ."

Why did he hate Laevsky and Laevsky hate him? Why were they going
to fight a duel? If from their childhood they had known poverty as
the deacon had; if they had been brought up among ignorant,
hard-hearted, grasping, coarse and ill-mannered people who grudged
you a crust of bread, who spat on the floor and hiccoughed at dinner
and at prayers; if they had not been spoilt from childhood by the
pleasant surroundings and the select circle of friends they lived
in--how they would have rushed at each other, how readily they
would have overlooked each other's shortcomings and would have
prized each other's strong points! Why, how few even outwardly
decent people there were in the world! It was true that Laevsky was
flighty, dissipated, queer, but he did not steal, did not spit
loudly on the floor; he did not abuse his wife and say, "You'll eat
till you burst, but you don't want to work;" he would not beat a
child with reins, or give his servants stinking meat to eat--
surely this was reason enough to be indulgent to him? Besides, he
was the chief sufferer from his failings, like a sick man from his
sores. Instead of being led by boredom and some sort of misunderstanding
to look for degeneracy, extinction, heredity, and other such
incomprehensible things in each other, would they not do better to
stoop a little lower and turn their hatred and anger where whole
streets resounded with moanings from coarse ignorance, greed,
scolding, impurity, swearing, the shrieks of women. . . .

The sound of a carriage interrupted the deacon's thoughts. He glanced
out of the door and saw a carriage and in it three persons: Laevsky,
Sheshkovsky, and the superintendent of the post-office.

"Stop!" said Sheshkovsky.

All three got out of the carriage and looked at one another.

"They are not here yet," said Sheshkovsky, shaking the mud off.
"Well? Till the show begins, let us go and find a suitable spot;
there's not room to turn round here."

They went further up the river and soon vanished from sight. The
Tatar driver sat in the carriage with his head resting on his
shoulder and fell asleep. After waiting ten minutes the deacon came
out of the drying-shed, and taking off his black hat that he might
not be noticed, he began threading his way among the bushes and
strips of maize along the bank, crouching and looking about him.
The grass and maize were wet, and big drops fell on his head from
the trees and bushes. "Disgraceful!" he muttered, picking up his
wet and muddy skirt. "Had I realised it, I would not have come."

Soon he heard voices and caught sight of them. Laevsky was walking
rapidly to and fro in the small glade with bowed back and hands
thrust in his sleeves; his seconds were standing at the water's
edge, rolling cigarettes.

"Strange," thought the deacon, not recognising Laevsky's walk; "he
looks like an old man. . . ."

"How rude it is of them!" said the superintendent of the post-office,
looking at his watch. "It may be learned manners to be late, but
to my thinking it's hoggish."

Sheshkovsky, a stout man with a black beard, listened and said:

"They're coming!"

XIX

"It's the first time in my life I've seen it! How glorious!" said
Von Koren, pointing to the glade and stretching out his hands to
the east. "Look: green rays!"

In the east behind the mountains rose two green streaks of light,
and it really was beautiful. The sun was rising.

"Good-morning!" the zoologist went on, nodding to Laevsky's seconds.
"I'm not late, am I?"

He was followed by his seconds, Boyko and Govorovsky, two very young
officers of the same height, wearing white tunics, and Ustimovitch,
the thin, unsociable doctor; in one hand he had a bag of some sort,
and in the other hand, as usual, a cane which he held behind him.
Laying the bag on the ground and greeting no one, he put the other
hand, too, behind his back and began pacing up and down the glade.

Laevsky felt the exhaustion and awkwardness of a man who is soon
perhaps to die, and is for that reason an object of general attention.
He wanted to be killed as soon as possible or taken home. He saw
the sunrise now for the first time in his life; the early morning,
the green rays of light, the dampness, and the men in wet boots,
seemed to him to have nothing to do with his life, to be superfluous
and embarrassing. All this had no connection with the night he had
been through, with his thoughts and his feeling of guilt, and so
he would have gladly gone away without waiting for the duel.

Von Koren was noticeably excited and tried to conceal it, pretending
that he was more interested in the green light than anything. The
seconds were confused, and looked at one another as though wondering
why they were here and what they were to do.

"I imagine, gentlemen, there is no need for us to go further," said
Sheshkovsky. "This place will do."

"Yes, of course," Von Koren agreed.

A silence followed. Ustimovitch, pacing to and fro, suddenly turned
sharply to Laevsky and said in a low voice, breathing into his face:

"They have very likely not told you my terms yet. Each side is to
pay me fifteen roubles, and in the case of the death of one party,
the survivor is to pay thirty."

Laevsky was already acquainted with the man, but now for the first
time he had a distinct view of his lustreless eyes, his stiff
moustaches, and wasted, consumptive neck; he was a money-grubber,
not a doctor; his breath had an unpleasant smell of beef.

"What people there are in the world!" thought Laevsky, and answered:
"Very good."

The doctor nodded and began pacing to and fro again, and it was
evident he did not need the money at all, but simply asked for it
from hatred. Every one felt it was time to begin, or to end what
had been begun, but instead of beginning or ending, they stood
about, moved to and fro and smoked. The young officers, who were
present at a duel for the first time in their lives, and even now
hardly believed in this civilian and, to their thinking, unnecessary
duel, looked critically at their tunics and stroked their sleeves.
Sheshkovsky went up to them and said softly: "Gentlemen, we must
use every effort to prevent this duel; they ought to be reconciled."

He flushed crimson and added:

"Kirilin was at my rooms last night complaining that Laevsky had
found him with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and all that sort of thing."

"Yes, we know that too," said Boyko.

"Well, you see, then . . . Laevsky's hands are trembling and all
that sort of thing . . . he can scarcely hold a pistol now. To fight
with him is as inhuman as to fight a man who is drunk or who has
typhoid. If a reconciliation cannot be arranged, we ought to put
off the duel, gentlemen, or something. . . . It's such a sickening
business, I can't bear to see it."

"Talk to Von Koren."

"I don't know the rules of duelling, damnation take them, and I
don't want to either; perhaps he'll imagine Laevsky funks it and
has sent me to him, but he can think what he likes--I'll speak
to him."

Sheshkovsky hesitatingly walked up to Von Koren with a slight limp,
as though his leg had gone to sleep; and as he went towards him,
clearing his throat, his whole figure was a picture of indolence.

"There's something I must say to you, sir," he began, carefully
scrutinising the flowers on the zoologist's shirt. "It's confidential.
I don't know the rules of duelling, damnation take them, and I don't
want to, and I look on the matter not as a second and that sort of
thing, but as a man, and that's all about it."

"Yes. Well?"

"When seconds suggest reconciliation they are usually not listened
to; it is looked upon as a formality. _Amour propre_ and all that.
But I humbly beg you to look carefully at Ivan Andreitch. He's not
in a normal state, so to speak, to-day--not in his right mind,
and a pitiable object. He has had a misfortune. I can't endure
gossip. . . ."

Sheshkovsky flushed crimson and looked round.

"But in view of the duel, I think it necessary to inform you, Laevsky
found his madam last night at Muridov's with . . . another gentleman."

"How disgusting!" muttered the zoologist; he turned pale, frowned,
and spat loudly. "Tfoo!"

His lower lip quivered, he walked away from Sheshkovsky, unwilling
to hear more, and as though he had accidentally tasted something
bitter, spat loudly again, and for the first time that morning
looked with hatred at Laevsky. His excitement and awkwardness passed
off; he tossed his head and said aloud:

"Gentlemen, what are we waiting for, I should like to know? Why
don't we begin?"

Sheshkovsky glanced at the officers and shrugged his shoulders.

"Gentlemen," he said aloud, addressing no one in particular.
"Gentlemen, we propose that you should be reconciled."

"Let us make haste and get the formalities over," said Von Koren.
"Reconciliation has been discussed already. What is the next
formality? Make haste, gentlemen, time won't wait for us."

"But we insist on reconciliation all the same," said Sheshkovsky
in a guilty voice, as a man compelled to interfere in another man's
business; he flushed, laid his hand on his heart, and went on:
"Gentlemen, we see no grounds for associating the offence with the
duel. There's nothing in common between duelling and offences against
one another of which we are sometimes guilty through human weakness.
You are university men and men of culture, and no doubt you see in
the duel nothing but a foolish and out-of-date formality, and all
that sort of thing. That's how we look at it ourselves, or we
shouldn't have come, for we cannot allow that in our presence men
should fire at one another, and all that." Sheshkovsky wiped the
perspiration off his face and went on: "Make an end to your
misunderstanding, gentlemen; shake hands, and let us go home and
drink to peace. Upon my honour, gentlemen!"

Von Koren did not speak. Laevsky, seeing that they were looking at
him, said:

"I have nothing against Nikolay Vassilitch; if he considers I'm to
blame, I'm ready to apologise to him."

Von Koren was offended.

"It is evident, gentlemen," he said, "you want Mr. Laevsky to return
home a magnanimous and chivalrous figure, but I cannot give you and
him that satisfaction. And there was no need to get up early and
drive eight miles out of town simply to drink to peace, to have
breakfast, and to explain to me that the duel is an out-of-date
formality. A duel is a duel, and there is no need to make it more
false and stupid than it is in reality. I want to fight!"

A silence followed. Boyko took a pair of pistols out of a box; one
was given to Von Koren and one to Laevsky, and then there followed
a difficulty which afforded a brief amusement to the zoologist and
the seconds. It appeared that of all the people present not one had
ever in his life been at a duel, and no one knew precisely how they
ought to stand, and what the seconds ought to say and do. But then
Boyko remembered and began, with a smile, to explain.

"Gentlemen, who remembers the description in Lermontov?" asked Von
Koren, laughing. "In Turgenev, too, Bazarov had a duel with some
one. . . ."

"There's no need to remember," said Ustimovitch impatiently. "Measure
the distance, that's all."

And he took three steps as though to show how to measure it. Boyko
counted out the steps while his companion drew his sabre and scratched
the earth at the extreme points to mark the barrier. In complete
silence the opponents took their places.

"Moles," the deacon thought, sitting in the bushes.

Sheshkovsky said something, Boyko explained something again, but
Laevsky did not hear--or rather heard, but did not understand.
He cocked his pistol when the time came to do so, and raised the
cold, heavy weapon with the barrel upwards. He forgot to unbutton
his overcoat, and it felt very tight over his shoulder and under
his arm, and his arm rose as awkwardly as though the sleeve had
been cut out of tin. He remembered the hatred he had felt the night
before for the swarthy brow and curly hair, and felt that even
yesterday at the moment of intense hatred and anger he could not
have shot a man. Fearing that the bullet might somehow hit Von Koren
by accident, he raised the pistol higher and higher, and felt that
this too obvious magnanimity was indelicate and anything but
magnanimous, but he did not know how else to do and could do nothing
else. Looking at the pale, ironically smiling face of Von Koren,
who evidently had been convinced from the beginning that his opponent
would fire in the air, Laevsky thought that, thank God, everything
would be over directly, and all that he had to do was to press the
trigger rather hard. . . .

He felt a violent shock on the shoulder; there was the sound of a
shot and an answering echo in the mountains: ping-ting!

Von Koren cocked his pistol and looked at Ustimovitch, who was
pacing as before with his hands behind his back, taking no notice
of any one.

"Doctor," said the zoologist, "be so good as not to move to and fro
like a pendulum. You make me dizzy."

The doctor stood still. Von Koren began to take aim at Laevsky.

"It's all over!" thought Laevsky.

The barrel of the pistol aimed straight at his face, the expression
of hatred and contempt in Von Koren's attitude and whole figure,
and the murder just about to be committed by a decent man in broad
daylight, in the presence of decent men, and the stillness and the
unknown force that compelled Laevsky to stand still and not to run
--how mysterious it all was, how incomprehensible and terrible!

The moment while Von Koren was taking aim seemed to Laevsky longer
than a night: he glanced imploringly at the seconds; they were pale
and did not stir.

"Make haste and fire," thought Laevsky, and felt that his pale,
quivering, and pitiful face must arouse even greater hatred in Von
Koren.

"I'll kill him directly," thought Von Koren, aiming at his forehead,
with his finger already on the catch. "Yes, of course I'll kill
him."

"He'll kill him!" A despairing shout was suddenly heard somewhere
very close at hand.

A shot rang out at once. Seeing that Laevsky remained standing where
he was and did not fall, they all looked in the direction from which
the shout had come, and saw the deacon. With pale face and wet hair
sticking to his forehead and his cheeks, wet through and muddy, he
was standing in the maize on the further bank, smiling rather queerly
and waving his wet hat. Sheshkovsky laughed with joy, burst into
tears, and moved away. . . .

XX

A little while afterwards, Von Koren and the deacon met near the
little bridge. The deacon was excited; he breathed hard, and avoided
looking in people's faces. He felt ashamed both of his terror and
his muddy, wet garments.

"I thought you meant to kill him . . ." he muttered. "How contrary
to human nature it is! How utterly unnatural it is!"

"But how did you come here?" asked the zoologist.

"Don't ask," said the deacon, waving his hand. "The evil one tempted
me, saying: 'Go, go. . . .' So I went and almost died of fright in
the maize. But now, thank God, thank God. . . . I am awfully pleased
with you," muttered the deacon. "Old Grandad Tarantula will be glad
. . . . It's funny, it's too funny! Only I beg of you most earnestly
don't tell anybody I was there, or I may get into hot water with
the authorities. They will say: 'The deacon was a second.'"

"Gentlemen," said Von Koren, "the deacon asks you not to tell any
one you've seen him here. He might get into trouble."

"How contrary to human nature it is!" sighed the deacon. "Excuse
my saying so, but your face was so dreadful that I thought you were
going to kill him."

"I was very much tempted to put an end to that scoundrel," said Von
Koren, "but you shouted close by, and I missed my aim. The whole
procedure is revolting to any one who is not used to it, and it has
exhausted me, deacon. I feel awfully tired. Come along. . . ."

"No, you must let me walk back. I must get dry, for I am wet and
cold."

"Well, as you like," said the zoologist, in a weary tone, feeling
dispirited, and, getting into the carriage, he closed his eyes. "As
you like. . . ."

While they were moving about the carriages and taking their seats,
Kerbalay stood in the road, and, laying his hands on his stomach,
he bowed low, showing his teeth; he imagined that the gentry had
come to enjoy the beauties of nature and drink tea, and could not
understand why they were getting into the carriages. The party set
off in complete silence and only the deacon was left by the _duhan_.

"Come to the _duhan_, drink tea," he said to Kerbalay. "Me wants
to eat."

Kerbalay spoke good Russian, but the deacon imagined that the Tatar
would understand him better if he talked to him in broken Russian.
"Cook omelette, give cheese. . . ."

"Come, come, father," said Kerbalay, bowing. "I'll give you everything
. . . . I've cheese and wine. . . . Eat what you like."

"What is 'God' in Tatar?" asked the deacon, going into the _duhan_.

"Your God and my God are the same," said Kerbalay, not understanding
him. "God is the same for all men, only men are different. Some are
Russian, some are Turks, some are English--there are many sorts
of men, but God is one."

"Very good. If all men worship the same God, why do you Mohammedans
look upon Christians as your everlasting enemies?"

"Why are you angry?" said Kerbalay, laying both hands on his stomach.
"You are a priest; I am a Mussulman: you say, 'I want to eat'--I
give it you. . . . Only the rich man distinguishes your God from
my God; for the poor man it is all the same. If you please, it is
ready."

While this theological conversation was taking place at the _duhan_,
Laevsky was driving home thinking how dreadful it had been driving
there at daybreak, when the roads, the rocks, and the mountains
were wet and dark, and the uncertain future seemed like a terrible
abyss, of which one could not see the bottom; while now the raindrops
hanging on the grass and on the stones were sparkling in the sun
like diamonds, nature was smiling joyfully, and the terrible future
was left behind. He looked at Sheshkovsky's sullen, tear-stained
face, and at the two carriages ahead of them in which Von Koren,
his seconds, and the doctor were sitting, and it seemed to him as
though they were all coming back from a graveyard in which a
wearisome, insufferable man who was a burden to others had just
been buried.

"Everything is over," he thought of his past, cautiously touching
his neck with his fingers.

On the right side of his neck was a small swelling, of the length
and breadth of his little finger, and he felt a pain, as though
some one had passed a hot iron over his neck. The bullet had bruised
it.

Afterwards, when he got home, a strange, long, sweet day began for
him, misty as forgetfulness. Like a man released from prison or
from hospital, he stared at the long-familiar objects and wondered
that the tables, the windows, the chairs, the light, and the sea
stirred in him a keen, childish delight such as he had not known
for long, long years. Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, pale and haggard, could
not understand his gentle voice and strange movements; she made
haste to tell him everything that had happened to her. . . . It
seemed to her that very likely he scarcely heard and did not
understand her, and that if he did know everything he would curse
her and kill her, but he listened to her, stroked her face and hair,
looked into her eyes and said:

"I have nobody but you. . . ."

Then they sat a long while in the garden, huddled close together,
saying nothing, or dreaming aloud of their happy life in the future,
in brief, broken sentences, while it seemed to him that he had never
spoken at such length or so eloquently.

XXI

More than three months had passed.

The day came that Von Koren had fixed on for his departure. A cold,
heavy rain had been falling from early morning, a north-east wind
was blowing, and the waves were high on the sea. It was said that
the steamer would hardly be able to come into the harbour in such
weather. By the time-table it should have arrived at ten o'clock
in the morning, but Von Koren, who had gone on to the sea-front at
midday and again after dinner, could see nothing through the
field-glass but grey waves and rain covering the horizon.

Towards the end of the day the rain ceased and the wind began to
drop perceptibly. Von Koren had already made up his mind that he
would not be able to get off that day, and had settled down to play
chess with Samoylenko; but after dark the orderly announced that
there were lights on the sea and that a rocket had been seen.

Von Koren made haste. He put his satchel over his shoulder, and
kissed Samoylenko and the deacon. Though there was not the slightest
necessity, he went through the rooms again, said good-bye to the
orderly and the cook, and went out into the street, feeling that
he had left something behind, either at the doctor's or his lodging.
In the street he walked beside Samoylenko, behind them came the
deacon with a box, and last of all the orderly with two portmanteaus.
Only Samoylenko and the orderly could distinguish the dim lights
on the sea. The others gazed into the darkness and saw nothing. The
steamer had stopped a long way from the coast.

"Make haste, make haste," Von Koren hurried them. "I am afraid it
will set off."

As they passed the little house with three windows, into which
Laevsky had moved soon after the duel, Von Koren could not resist
peeping in at the window. Laevsky was sitting, writing, bent over
the table, with his back to the window.

"I wonder at him!" said the zoologist softly. "What a screw he has
put on himself!"

"Yes, one may well wonder," said Samoylenko. "He sits from morning
till night, he's always at work. He works to pay off his debts. And
he lives, brother, worse than a beggar!"

Half a minute of silence followed. The zoologist, the doctor, and
the deacon stood at the window and went on looking at Laevsky.

"So he didn't get away from here, poor fellow," said Samoylenko.
"Do you remember how hard he tried?"

"Yes, he has put a screw on himself," Von Koren repeated. "His
marriage, the way he works all day long for his daily bread, a new
expression in his face, and even in his walk--it's all so
extraordinary that I don't know what to call it."

The zoologist took Samoylenko's sleeve and went on with emotion in
his voice:

"You tell him and his wife that when I went away I was full of
admiration for them and wished them all happiness . . . and I beg
him, if he can, not to remember evil against me. He knows me. He
knows that if I could have foreseen this change, then I might have
become his best friend."

"Go in and say good-bye to him."

"No, that wouldn't do."

"Why? God knows, perhaps you'll never see him again."

The zoologist reflected, and said:

"That's true."

Samoylenko tapped softly at the window. Laevsky started and looked
round.

"Vanya, Nikolay Vassilitch wants to say goodbye to you," said
Samoylenko. "He is just going away."

Laevsky got up from the table, and went into the passage to open
the door. Samoylenko, the zoologist, and the deacon went into the
house.

"I can only come for one minute," began the zoologist, taking off
his goloshes in the passage, and already wishing he had not given
way to his feelings and come in, uninvited. "It is as though I were
forcing myself on him," he thought, "and that's stupid."

"Forgive me for disturbing you," he said as he went into the room
with Laevsky, "but I'm just going away, and I had an impulse to see
you. God knows whether we shall ever meet again."

"I am very glad to see you. . . . Please come in," said Laevsky,
and he awkwardly set chairs for his visitors as though he wanted
to bar their way, and stood in the middle of the room, rubbing his
hands.

"I should have done better to have left my audience in the street,"
thought Von Koren, and he said firmly: "Don't remember evil against
me, Ivan Andreitch. To forget the past is, of course, impossible
--it is too painful, and I've not come here to apologise or to
declare that I was not to blame. I acted sincerely, and I have not
changed my convictions since then. . . . It is true that I see, to
my great delight, that I was mistaken in regard to you, but it's
easy to make a false step even on a smooth road, and, in fact, it's
the natural human lot: if one is not mistaken in the main, one is
mistaken in the details. Nobody knows the real truth."

"No, no one knows the truth," said Laevsky.

"Well, good-bye. . . . God give you all happiness."

Von Koren gave Laevsky his hand; the latter took it and bowed.

"Don't remember evil against me," said Von Koren. "Give my greetings
to your wife, and say I am very sorry not to say good-bye to her."

"She is at home."

Laevsky went to the door of the next room, and said:

"Nadya, Nikolay Vassilitch wants to say goodbye to you."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna came in; she stopped near the doorway and
looked shyly at the visitors. There was a look of guilt and dismay
on her face, and she held her hands like a schoolgirl receiving a
scolding.

"I'm just going away, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna," said Von Koren, "and
have come to say good-bye."

She held out her hand uncertainly, while Laevsky bowed.

"What pitiful figures they are, though!" thought Von Koren. "The
life they are living does not come easy to them. I shall be in
Moscow and Petersburg; can I send you anything?" he asked.

"Oh!" said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and she looked anxiously at her
husband. "I don't think there's anything. . . ."

"No, nothing . . ." said Laevsky, rubbing his hands. "Our greetings."

Von Koren did not know what he could or ought to say, though as he
went in he thought he would say a very great deal that would be
warm and good and important. He shook hands with Laevsky and his
wife in silence, and left them with a depressed feeling.

"What people!" said the deacon in a low voice, as he walked behind
them. "My God, what people! Of a truth, the right hand of God has
planted this vine! Lord! Lord! One man vanquishes thousands and
another tens of thousands. Nikolay Vassilitch," he said ecstatically,
"let me tell you that to-day you have conquered the greatest of
man's enemies--pride."

"Hush, deacon! Fine conquerors we are! Conquerors ought to look
like eagles, while he's a pitiful figure, timid, crushed; he bows
like a Chinese idol, and I, I am sad. . . ."

They heard steps behind them. It was Laevsky, hurrying after them
to see him off. The orderly was standing on the quay with the two
portmanteaus, and at a little distance stood four boatmen.

"There is a wind, though. . . . Brrr!" said Samoylenko. "There must
be a pretty stiff storm on the sea now! You are not going off at a
nice time, Koyla."

"I'm not afraid of sea-sickness."

"That's not the point. . . . I only hope these rascals won't upset
you. You ought to have crossed in the agent's sloop. Where's the
agent's sloop?" he shouted to the boatmen.

"It has gone, Your Excellency."

"And the Customs-house boat?"

"That's gone, too."

"Why didn't you let us know," said Samoylenko angrily. "You dolts!"

"It's all the same, don't worry yourself . . ." said Von Koren.
"Well, good-bye. God keep you."

Samoylenko embraced Von Koren and made the sign of the cross over
him three times.

"Don't forget us, Kolya. . . . Write. . . . We shall look out for
you next spring."

"Good-bye, deacon," said Von Koren, shaking hands with the deacon.
"Thank you for your company and for your pleasant conversation.
Think about the expedition."

"Oh Lord, yes! to the ends of the earth," laughed the deacon. "I've
nothing against it."

Von Koren recognised Laevsky in the darkness, and held out his hand
without speaking. The boatmen were by now below, holding the boat,
which was beating against the piles, though the breakwater screened
it from the breakers. Von Koren went down the ladder, jumped into
the boat, and sat at the helm.

"Write!" Samoylenko shouted to him. "Take care of yourself."

"No one knows the real truth," thought Laevsky, turning up the
collar of his coat and thrusting his hands into his sleeves.

The boat turned briskly out of the harbour into the open sea. It
vanished in the waves, but at once from a deep hollow glided up
onto a high breaker, so that they could distinguish the men and
even the oars. The boat moved three yards forward and was sucked
two yards back.

"Write!" shouted Samoylenko; "it's devilish weather for you to go
in."

"Yes, no one knows the real truth . . ." thought Laevsky, looking
wearily at the dark, restless sea.

"It flings the boat back," he thought; "she makes two steps forward
and one step back; but the boatmen are stubborn, they work the oars
unceasingly, and are not afraid of the high waves. The boat goes
on and on. Now she is out of sight, but in half an hour the boatmen
will see the steamer lights distinctly, and within an hour they
will be by the steamer ladder. So it is in life. . . . In the search
for truth man makes two steps forward and one step back. Suffering,
mistakes, and weariness of life thrust them back, but the thirst
for truth and stubborn will drive them on and on. And who knows?
Perhaps they will reach the real truth at last."

"Go--o--od-by--e," shouted Samoylenko.

"There's no sight or sound of them," said the deacon. "Good luck
on the journey!"

It began to spot with rain.


EXCELLENT PEOPLE

ONCE upon a time there lived in Moscow a man called Vladimir
Semyonitch Liadovsky. He took his degree at the university in the
faculty of law and had a post on the board of management of some
railway; but if you had asked him what his work was, he would look
candidly and openly at you with his large bright eyes through his
gold pincenez, and would answer in a soft, velvety, lisping baritone:

"My work is literature."

After completing his course at the university, Vladimir Semyonitch
had had a paragraph of theatrical criticism accepted by a newspaper.
From this paragraph he passed on to reviewing, and a year later he
had advanced to writing a weekly article on literary matters for
the same paper. But it does not follow from these facts that he was
an amateur, that his literary work was of an ephemeral, haphazard
character. Whenever I saw his neat spare figure, his high forehead
and long mane of hair, when I listened to his speeches, it always
seemed to me that his writing, quite apart from what and how he
wrote, was something organically part of him, like the beating of
his heart, and that his whole literary programme must have been an
integral part of his brain while he was a baby in his mother's womb.
Even in his walk, his gestures, his manner of shaking off the ash
from his cigarette, I could read this whole programme from A to Z,
with all its claptrap, dulness, and honourable sentiments. He was
a literary man all over when with an inspired face he laid a wreath
on the coffin of some celebrity, or with a grave and solemn face
collected signatures for some address; his passion for making the
acquaintance of distinguished literary men, his faculty for finding
talent even where it was absent, his perpetual enthusiasm, his pulse
that went at one hundred and twenty a minute, his ignorance of life,
the genuinely feminine flutter with which he threw himself into
concerts and literary evenings for the benefit of destitute students,
the way in which he gravitated towards the young--all this would
have created for him the reputation of a writer even if he had not
written his articles.

He was one of those writers to whom phrases like, "We are but few,"
or "What would life be without strife? Forward!" were pre-eminently
becoming, though he never strove with any one and never did go
forward. It did not even sound mawkish when he fell to discoursing
of ideals. Every anniversary of the university, on St. Tatiana's
Day, he got drunk, chanted _Gaudeamus_ out of tune, and his beaming
and perspiring countenance seemed to say: "See, I'm drunk; I'm
keeping it up!" But even that suited him.

Vladimir Semyonitch had genuine faith in his literary vocation and
his whole programme. He had no doubts, and was evidently very well
pleased with himself. Only one thing grieved him--the paper for
which he worked had a limited circulation and was not very influential.
But Vladimir Semyonitch believed that sooner or later he would
succeed in getting on to a solid magazine where he would have scope
and could display himself--and what little distress he felt on
this score was pale beside the brilliance of his hopes.

Visiting this charming man, I made the acquaintance of his sister,
Vera Semyonovna, a woman doctor. At first sight, what struck me
about this woman was her look of exhaustion and extreme ill-health.
She was young, with a good figure and regular, rather large features,
but in comparison with her agile, elegant, and talkative brother
she seemed angular, listless, slovenly, and sullen. There was
something strained, cold, apathetic in her movements, smiles, and
words; she was not liked, and was thought proud and not very
intelligent.

In reality, I fancy, she was resting.

"My dear friend," her brother would often say to me, sighing and
flinging back his hair in his picturesque literary way, "one must
never judge by appearances! Look at this book: it has long ago been
read. It is warped, tattered, and lies in the dust uncared for; but
open it, and it will make you weep and turn pale. My sister is like
that book. Lift the cover and peep into her soul, and you will be
horror-stricken. Vera passed in some three months through experiences
that would have been ample for a whole lifetime!"

Vladimir Semyonitch looked round him, took me by the sleeve, and
began to whisper:

"You know, after taking her degree she married, for love, an
architect. It's a complete tragedy! They had hardly been married a
month when--whew--her husband died of typhus. But that was not
all. She caught typhus from him, and when, on her recovery, she
learnt that her Ivan was dead, she took a good dose of morphia. If
it had not been for vigorous measures taken by her friends, my Vera
would have been by now in Paradise. Tell me, isn't it a tragedy?
And is not my sister like an _ingenue_, who has played already all
the five acts of her life? The audience may stay for the farce, but
the _ingenue_ must go home to rest."

After three months of misery Vera Semyonovna had come to live with
her brother. She was not fitted for the practice of medicine, which
exhausted her and did not satisfy her; she did not give one the
impression of knowing her subject, and I never once heard her say
anything referring to her medical studies.

She gave up medicine, and, silent and unoccupied, as though she
were a prisoner, spent the remainder of her youth in colourless
apathy, with bowed head and hanging hands. The only thing to which
she was not completely indifferent, and which brought some brightness
into the twilight of her life, was the presence of her brother,
whom she loved. She loved him himself and his programme, she was
full of reverence for his articles; and when she was asked what her
brother was doing, she would answer in a subdued voice as though
afraid of waking or distracting him: "He is writing. . . ." Usually
when he was at his work she used to sit beside him, her eyes fixed
on his writing hand. She used at such moments to look like a sick
animal warming itself in the sun. . . .

One winter evening Vladimir Semyonitch was sitting at his table
writing a critical article for his newspaper: Vera Semyonovna was
sitting beside him, staring as usual at his writing hand. The critic
wrote rapidly, without erasures or corrections. The pen scratched
and squeaked. On the table near the writing hand there lay open a
freshly-cut volume of a thick magazine, containing a story of peasant
life, signed with two initials. Vladimir Semyonitch was enthusiastic;
he thought the author was admirable in his handling of the subject,
suggested Turgenev in his descriptions of nature, was truthful, and
had an excellent knowledge of the life of the peasantry. The critic
himself knew nothing of peasant life except from books and hearsay,
but his feelings and his inner convictions forced him to believe
the story. He foretold a brilliant future for the author, assured
him he should await the conclusion of the story with great impatience,
and so on.

"Fine story!" he said, flinging himself back in his chair and closing
his eyes with pleasure. "The tone is extremely good."

Vera Semyonovna looked at him, yawned aloud, and suddenly asked an
unexpected question. In the evening she had a habit of yawning
nervously and asking short, abrupt questions, not always relevant.

"Volodya," she asked, "what is the meaning of non-resistance to
evil?"

"Non-resistance to evil!" repeated her brother, opening his eyes.

"Yes. What do you understand by it?"

"You see, my dear, imagine that thieves or brigands attack you, and
you, instead of . . ."

"No, give me a logical definition."

"A logical definition? Um! Well." Vladimir Semyonitch pondered.
"Non-resistance to evil means an attitude of non-interference with
regard to all that in the sphere of mortality is called evil."

Saying this, Vladimir Semyonitch bent over the table and took up a
novel. This novel, written by a woman, dealt with the painfulness
of the irregular position of a society lady who was living under
the same roof with her lover and her illegitimate child. Vladimir
Semyonitch was pleased with the excellent tendency of the story,
the plot and the presentation of it. Making a brief summary of the
novel, he selected the best passages and added to them in his
account: "How true to reality, how living, how picturesque! The
author is not merely an artist; he is also a subtle psychologist
who can see into the hearts of his characters. Take, for example,
this vivid description of the emotions of the heroine on meeting
her husband," and so on.

"Volodya," Vera Semyonovna interrupted his critical effusions, "I've
been haunted by a strange idea since yesterday. I keep wondering
where we should all be if human life were ordered on the basis of
non-resistance to evil?"

"In all probability, nowhere. Non-resistance to evil would give the
full rein to the criminal will, and, to say nothing of civilisation,
this would leave not one stone standing upon another anywhere on
earth."

"What would be left?"

"Bashi-Bazouke and brothels. In my next article I'll talk about
that perhaps. Thank you for reminding me."

And a week later my friend kept his promise. That was just at the
period--in the eighties--when people were beginning to talk and
write of non-resistance, of the right to judge, to punish, to make
war; when some people in our set were beginning to do without
servants, to retire into the country, to work on the land, and to
renounce animal food and carnal love.

After reading her brother's article, Vera Semyonovna pondered and
hardly perceptibly shrugged her shoulders.

"Very nice!" she said. "But still there's a great deal I don't
understand. For instance, in Leskov's story 'Belonging to the
Cathedral' there is a queer gardener who sows for the benefit of
all--for customers, for beggars, and any who care to steal. Did
he behave sensibly?"

From his sister's tone and expression Vladimir Semyonitch saw that
she did not like his article, and, almost for the first time in his
life, his vanity as an author sustained a shock. With a shade of
irritation he answered:

"Theft is immoral. To sow for thieves is to recognise the right of
thieves to existence. What would you think if I were to establish
a newspaper and, dividing it into sections, provide for blackmailing
as well as for liberal ideas? Following the example of that gardener,
I ought, logically, to provide a section for blackmailers, the
intellectual scoundrels? Yes."

Vera Semyonovna made no answer. She got up from the table, moved
languidly to the sofa and lay down.

"I don't know, I know nothing about it," she said musingly. "You
are probably right, but it seems to me, I feel somehow, that there's
something false in our resistance to evil, as though there were
something concealed or unsaid. God knows, perhaps our methods of
resisting evil belong to the category of prejudices which have
become so deeply rooted in us, that we are incapable of parting
with them, and therefore cannot form a correct judgment of them."

"How do you mean?"

"I don't know how to explain to you. Perhaps man is mistaken in
thinking that he is obliged to resist evil and has a right to do
so, just as he is mistaken in thinking, for instance, that the heart
looks like an ace of hearts. It is very possible in resisting evil
we ought not to use force, but to use what is the very opposite of
force--if you, for instance, don't want this picture stolen from
you, you ought to give it away rather than lock it up. . . ."

"That's clever, very clever! If I want to marry a rich, vulgar
woman, she ought to prevent me from such a shabby action by hastening
to make me an offer herself!"

The brother and sister talked till midnight without understanding
each other. If any outsider had overheard them he would hardly have
been able to make out what either of them was driving at.

They usually spent the evening at home. There were no friends'
houses to which they could go, and they felt no need for friends;
they only went to the theatre when there was a new play--such was
the custom in literary circles--they did not go to concerts, for
they did not care for music.

"You may think what you like," Vera Semyonovna began again the next
day, "but for me the question is to a great extent settled. I am
firmly convinced that I have no grounds for resisting evil directed
against me personally. If they want to kill me, let them. My defending
myself will not make the murderer better. All I have now to decide
is the second half of the question: how I ought to behave to evil
directed against my neighbours?"

"Vera, mind you don't become rabid!" said Vladimir Semyonitch,
laughing. "I see non-resistance is becoming your _idee fixe_!"

He wanted to turn off these tedious conversations with a jest, but
somehow it was beyond a jest; his smile was artificial and sour.
His sister gave up sitting beside his table and gazing reverently
at his writing hand, and he felt every evening that behind him on
the sofa lay a person who did not agree with him. And his back grew
stiff and numb, and there was a chill in his soul. An author's
vanity is vindictive, implacable, incapable of forgiveness, and his
sister was the first and only person who had laid bare and disturbed
that uneasy feeling, which is like a big box of crockery, easy to
unpack but impossible to pack up again as it was before.

Weeks and months passed by, and his sister clung to her ideas, and
did not sit down by the table. One spring evening Vladimir Semyonitch
was sitting at his table writing an article. He was reviewing a
novel which described how a village schoolmistress refused the man
whom she loved and who loved her, a man both wealthy and intellectual,
simply because marriage made her work as a schoolmistress impossible.
Vera Semyonovna lay on the sofa and brooded.

"My God, how slow it is!" she said, stretching. "How insipid and
empty life is! I don't know what to do with myself, and you are
wasting your best years in goodness knows what. Like some alchemist,
you are rummaging in old rubbish that nobody wants. My God!"

Vladimir Semyonitch dropped his pen and slowly looked round at his
sister.

"It's depressing to look at you!" said his sister. "Wagner in 'Faust'
dug up worms, but he was looking for a treasure, anyway, and you
are looking for worms for the sake of the worms."

"That's vague!"

"Yes, Volodya; all these days I've been thinking, I've been thinking
painfully for a long time, and I have come to the conclusion that
you are hopelessly reactionary and conventional. Come, ask yourself
what is the object of your zealous, conscientious work? Tell me,
what is it? Why, everything has long ago been extracted that can
be extracted from that rubbish in which you are always rummaging.
You may pound water in a mortar and analyse it as long as you like,
you'll make nothing more of it than the chemists have made
already. . . ."

"Indeed!" drawled Vladimir Semyonitch, getting up. "Yes, all this
is old rubbish because these ideas are eternal; but what do you
consider new, then?"

"You undertake to work in the domain of thought; it is for you to
think of something new. It's not for me to teach you."

"Me--an alchemist!" the critic cried in wonder and indignation,
screwing up his eyes ironically. "Art, progress--all that is
alchemy?"

"You see, Volodya, it seems to me that if all you thinking people
had set yourselves to solving great problems, all these little
questions that you fuss about now would solve themselves by the
way. If you go up in a balloon to see a town, you will incidentally,
without any effort, see the fields and the villages and the rivers
as well. When stearine is manufactured, you get glycerine as a
by-product. It seems to me that contemporary thought has settled
on one spot and stuck to it. It is prejudiced, apathetic, timid,
afraid to take a wide titanic flight, just as you and I are afraid
to climb on a high mountain; it is conservative."

Such conversations could not but leave traces. The relations of the
brother and sister grew more and more strained every day. The brother
became unable to work in his sister's presence, and grew irritable
when he knew his sister was lying on the sofa, looking at his back;
while the sister frowned nervously and stretched when, trying to
bring back the past, he attempted to share his enthusiasms with
her. Every evening she complained of being bored, and talked about
independence of mind and those who are in the rut of tradition.
Carried away by her new ideas, Vera Semyonovna proved that the work
that her brother was so engrossed in was conventional, that it was
a vain effort of conservative minds to preserve what had already
served its turn and was vanishing from the scene of action. She
made no end of comparisons. She compared her brother at one time
to an alchemist, then to a musty old Believer who would sooner die
than listen to reason. By degrees there was a perceptible change
in her manner of life, too. She was capable of lying on the sofa
all day long doing nothing but think, while her face wore a cold,
dry expression such as one sees in one-sided people of strong faith.
She began to refuse the attentions of the servants, swept and tidied
her own room, cleaned her own boots and brushed her own clothes.
Her brother could not help looking with irritation and even hatred
at her cold face when she went about her menial work. In that work,
which was always performed with a certain solemnity, he saw something
strained and false, he saw something both pharisaical and affected.
And knowing he could not touch her by persuasion, he carped at her
and teased her like a schoolboy.

"You won't resist evil, but you resist my having servants!" he
taunted her. "If servants are an evil, why do you oppose it? That's
inconsistent!"

He suffered, was indignant and even ashamed. He felt ashamed when
his sister began doing odd things before strangers.

"It's awful, my dear fellow," he said to me in private, waving his
hands in despair. "It seems that our _ingenue_ has remained to play
a part in the farce, too. She's become morbid to the marrow of her
bones! I've washed my hands of her, let her think as she likes; but
why does she talk, why does she excite me? She ought to think what
it means for me to listen to her. What I feel when in my presence
she has the effrontery to support her errors by blasphemously quoting
the teaching of Christ! It chokes me! It makes me hot all over to
hear my sister propounding her doctrines and trying to distort the
Gospel to suit her, when she purposely refrains from mentioning how
the moneychangers were driven out of the Temple. That's, my dear
fellow, what comes of being half educated, undeveloped! That's what
comes of medical studies which provide no general culture!"

One day on coming home from the office, Vladimir Semyonitch found
his sister crying. She was sitting on the sofa with her head bowed,
wringing her hands, and tears were flowing freely down her cheeks.
The critic's good heart throbbed with pain. Tears fell from his
eyes, too, and he longed to pet his sister, to forgive her, to beg
her forgiveness, and to live as they used to before. . . . He knelt
down and kissed her head, her hands, her shoulders. . . . She smiled,
smiled bitterly, unaccountably, while he with a cry of joy jumped
up, seized the magazine from the table and said warmly:

"Hurrah! We'll live as we used to, Verotchka! With God's blessing!
And I've such a surprise for you here! Instead of celebrating the
occasion with champagne, let us read it together! A splendid,
wonderful thing!"

"Oh, no, no!" cried Vera Semyonovna, pushing away the book in alarm.
"I've read it already! I don't want it, I don't want it!"

"When did you read it?"

"A year . . . two years ago. . . I read it long ago, and I know it,
I know it!"

"H'm! . . . You're a fanatic!" her brother said coldly, flinging
the magazine on to the table.

"No, you are a fanatic, not I! You!" And Vera Semyonovna dissolved
into tears again. Her brother stood before her, looked at her
quivering shoulders, and thought. He thought, not of the agonies
of loneliness endured by any one who begins to think in a new way
of their own, not of the inevitable sufferings of a genuine spiritual
revolution, but of the outrage of his programme, the outrage to his
author's vanity.

From this time he treated his sister coldly, with careless irony,
and he endured her presence in the room as one endures the presence
of old women that are dependent on one. For her part, she left off
disputing with him and met all his arguments, jeers, and attacks
with a condescending silence which irritated him more than ever.

One summer morning Vera Semyonovna, dressed for travelling with a
satchel over her shoulder, went in to her brother and coldly kissed
him on the forehead.

"Where are you going?" he asked with surprise.

"To the province of N. to do vaccination work." Her brother went
out into the street with her.

"So that's what you've decided upon, you queer girl," he muttered.
"Don't you want some money?"

"No, thank you. Good-bye."

The sister shook her brother's hand and set off.

"Why don't you have a cab?" cried Vladimir Semyonitch.

She did not answer. Her brother gazed after her, watched her
rusty-looking waterproof, the swaying of her figure as she slouched
along, forced himself to sigh, but did not succeed in rousing a
feeling of regret. His sister had become a stranger to him. And he
was a stranger to her. Anyway, she did not once look round.

Going back to his room, Vladimir Semyonitch at once sat down to the
table and began to work at his article.

I never saw Vera Semyonovna again. Where she is now I do not know.
And Vladimir Semyonitch went on writing his articles, laying wreaths
on coffins, singing _Gaudeamus_, busying himself over the Mutual
Aid Society of Moscow Journalists.

He fell ill with inflammation of the lungs; he was ill in bed for
three months--at first at home, and afterwards in the Golitsyn
Hospital. An abscess developed in his knee. People said he ought
to be sent to the Crimea, and began getting up a collection for
him. But he did not go to the Crimea--he died. We buried him in
the Vagankovsky Cemetery, on the left side, where artists and
literary men are buried.

One day we writers were sitting in the Tatars' restaurant. I mentioned
that I had lately been in the Vagankovsky Cemetery and had seen
Vladimir Semyonitch's grave there. It was utterly neglected and
almost indistinguishable from the rest of the ground, the cross had
fallen; it was necessary to collect a few roubles to put it in
order.

But they listened to what I said unconcernedly, made no answer, and
I could not collect a farthing. No one remembered Vladimir Semyonitch.
He was utterly forgotten.


MIRE

I

GRACEFULLY swaying in the saddle, a young man wearing the snow-white
tunic of an officer rode into the great yard of the vodka distillery
belonging to the heirs of M. E. Rothstein. The sun smiled carelessly
on the lieutenant's little stars, on the white trunks of the
birch-trees, on the heaps of broken glass scattered here and there
in the yard. The radiant, vigorous beauty of a summer day lay over
everything, and nothing hindered the snappy young green leaves from
dancing gaily and winking at the clear blue sky. Even the dirty and
soot-begrimed appearance of the bricksheds and the stifling fumes
of the distillery did not spoil the general good impression. The
lieutenant sprang gaily out of the saddle, handed over his horse
to a man who ran up, and stroking with his finger his delicate black
moustaches, went in at the front door. On the top step of the old
but light and softly carpeted staircase he was met by a maidservant
with a haughty, not very youthful face. The lieutenant gave her his
card without speaking.

As she went through the rooms with the card, the maid could see on
it the name "Alexandr Grigoryevitch Sokolsky." A minute later she
came back and told the lieutenant that her mistress could not see
him, as she was not feeling quite well. Sokolsky looked at the
ceiling and thrust out his lower lip.

"How vexatious!" he said. "Listen, my dear," he said eagerly. "Go
and tell Susanna Moiseyevna, that it is very necessary for me to
speak to her--very. I will only keep her one minute. Ask her to
excuse me."

The maid shrugged one shoulder and went off languidly to her mistress.

"Very well!" she sighed, returning after a brief interval. "Please
walk in!"

The lieutenant went with her through five or six large, luxuriously
furnished rooms and a corridor, and finally found himself in a large
and lofty square room, in which from the first step he was impressed
by the abundance of flowers and plants and the sweet, almost
revoltingly heavy fragrance of jasmine. Flowers were trained to
trellis-work along the walls, screening the windows, hung from the
ceiling, and were wreathed over the corners, so that the room was
more like a greenhouse than a place to live in. Tits, canaries, and
goldfinches chirruped among the green leaves and fluttered against
the window-panes.

"Forgive me for receiving you here," the lieutenant heard in a
mellow feminine voice with a burr on the letter _r_ which was not
without charm. "Yesterday I had a sick headache, and I'm trying to
keep still to prevent its coming on again. What do you want?"

Exactly opposite the entrance, he saw sitting in a big low chair,
such as old men use, a woman in an expensive Chinese dressing-gown,
with her head wrapped up, leaning back on a pillow. Nothing could
be seen behind the woollen shawl in which she was muffled but a
pale, long, pointed, somewhat aquiline nose, and one large dark
eye. Her ample dressing-gown concealed her figure, but judging from
her beautiful hand, from her voice, her nose, and her eye, she might
be twenty-six or twenty-eight.

"Forgive me for being so persistent . . ." began the lieutenant,
clinking his spurs. "Allow me to introduce myself: Sokolsky! I come
with a message from my cousin, your neighbour, Alexey Ivanovitch
Kryukov, who . . ."

"I know!" interposed Susanna Moiseyevna. "I know Kryukov. Sit down;
I don't like anything big standing before me."

"My cousin charges me to ask you a favour," the lieutenant went on,
clinking his spurs once more and sitting down. "The fact is, your
late father made a purchase of oats from my cousin last winter, and
a small sum was left owing. The payment only becomes due next week,
but my cousin begs you most particularly to pay him--if possible,
to-day."

As the lieutenant talked, he stole side-glances about him.

"Surely I'm not in her bedroom?" he thought.

In one corner of the room, where the foliage was thickest and
tallest, under a pink awning like a funeral canopy, stood a bed not
yet made, with the bedclothes still in disorder. Close by on two
arm-chairs lay heaps of crumpled feminine garments. Petticoats and
sleeves with rumpled lace and flounces were trailing on the carpet,
on which here and there lay bits of white tape, cigarette-ends, and
the papers of caramels. . . . Under the bed the toes, pointed and
square, of slippers of all kinds peeped out in a long row. And it
seemed to the lieutenant that the scent of the jasmine came not
from the flowers, but from the bed and the slippers.

"And what is the sum owing?" asked Susanna Moiseyevna.

"Two thousand three hundred."

"Oho!" said the Jewess, showing another large black eye. "And you
call that--a small sum! However, it's just the same paying it
to-day or paying it in a week, but I've had so many payments to
make in the last two months since my father's death. . . . Such a
lot of stupid business, it makes my head go round! A nice idea! I
want to go abroad, and they keep forcing me to attend to these silly
things. Vodka, oats . . ." she muttered, half closing her eyes,
"oats, bills, percentages, or, as my head-clerk says, 'percentage.'
. . . It's awful. Yesterday I simply turned the excise officer out.
He pesters me with his Tralles. I said to him: 'Go to the devil
with your Tralles! I can't see any one!' He kissed my hand and went
away. I tell you what: can't your cousin wait two or three months?"

"A cruel question!" laughed the lieutenant. "My cousin can wait a
year, but it's I who cannot wait! You see, it's on my own account
I'm acting, I ought to tell you. At all costs I must have money,
and by ill-luck my cousin hasn't a rouble to spare. I'm forced to
ride about and collect debts. I've just been to see a peasant, our
tenant; here I'm now calling on you; from here I shall go on to
somewhere else, and keep on like that until I get together five
thousand roubles. I need money awfully!"

"Nonsense! What does a young man want with money? Whims, mischief.
Why, have you been going in for dissipation? Or losing at cards?
Or are you getting married?"

"You've guessed!" laughed the lieutenant, and rising slightly from
his seat, he clinked his spurs. "I really am going to be married."

Susanna Moiseyevna looked intently at her visitor, made a wry face,
and sighed.

"I can't make out what possesses people to get married!" she said,
looking about her for her pocket-handkerchief. "Life is so short,
one has so little freedom, and they must put chains on themselves!"

"Every one has his own way of looking at things. . . ."

"Yes, yes, of course; every one has his own way of looking at things
. . . . But, I say, are you really going to marry some one poor? Are
you passionately in love? And why must you have five thousand? Why
won't four do, or three?"

"What a tongue she has!" thought the lieutenant, and answered: "The
difficulty is that an officer is not allowed by law to marry till
he is twenty-eight; if you choose to marry, you have to leave the
Service or else pay a deposit of five thousand."

"Ah, now I understand. Listen. You said just now that every one has
his own way of looking at things. . . . Perhaps your fiancee is
some one special and remarkable, but . . . but I am utterly unable
to understand how any decent man can live with a woman. I can't for
the life of me understand it. I have lived, thank the Lord,
twenty-seven years, and I have never yet seen an endurable woman.
They're all affected minxes, immoral, liars. . . . The only ones I
can put up with are cooks and housemaids, but so-called ladies I
won't let come within shooting distance of me. But, thank God, they
hate me and don't force themselves on me! If one of them wants money
she sends her husband, but nothing will induce her to come herself,
not from pride--no, but from cowardice; she's afraid of my making
a scene. Oh, I understand their hatred very well! Rather! I openly
display what they do their very utmost to conceal from God and man.
How can they help hating me? No doubt you've heard bushels of scandal
about me already. . . ."

"I only arrived here so lately . . ."

"Tut, tut, tut! . . . I see from your eyes! But your brother's wife,
surely she primed you for this expedition? Think of letting a young
man come to see such an awful woman without warning him--how could
she? Ha, ha! . . . But tell me, how is your brother? He's a fine
fellow, such a handsome man! . . . I've seen him several times at
mass. Why do you look at me like that? I very often go to church!
We all have the same God. To an educated person externals matter
less than the idea. . . . That's so, isn't it?"

"Yes, of course . . ." smiled the lieutenant.

"Yes, the idea. . . . But you are not a bit like your brother. You
are handsome, too, but your brother is a great deal better-looking.
There's wonderfully little likeness!"

"That's quite natural; he's not my brother, but my cousin."

"Ah, to be sure! So you must have the money to-day? Why to-day?"

"My furlough is over in a few days."

"Well, what's to be done with you!" sighed Susanna Moiseyevna. "So
be it. I'll give you the money, though I know you'll abuse me for
it afterwards. You'll quarrel with your wife after you are married,
and say: 'If that mangy Jewess hadn't given me the money, I should
perhaps have been as free as a bird to-day!' Is your fiancee pretty?"

"Oh yes. . . ."

"H'm! . . . Anyway, better something, if it's only beauty, than
nothing. Though however beautiful a woman is, it can never make up
to her husband for her silliness."

"That's original!" laughed the lieutenant. "You are a woman yourself,
and such a woman-hater!"

"A woman . . ." smiled Susanna. "It's not my fault that God has
cast me into this mould, is it? I'm no more to blame for it than
you are for having moustaches. The violin is not responsible for
the choice of its case. I am very fond of myself, but when any one
reminds me that I am a woman, I begin to hate myself. Well, you can
go away, and I'll dress. Wait for me in the drawing-room."

The lieutenant went out, and the first thing he did was to draw a
deep breath, to get rid of the heavy scent of jasmine, which had
begun to irritate his throat and to make him feel giddy.

"What a strange woman!" he thought, looking about him. "She talks
fluently, but . . . far too much, and too freely. She must be
neurotic."

The drawing-room, in which he was standing now, was richly furnished,
and had pretensions to luxury and style. There were dark bronze
dishes with patterns in relief, views of Nice and the Rhine on the
tables, old-fashioned sconces, Japanese statuettes, but all this
striving after luxury and style only emphasised the lack of taste
which was glaringly apparent in the gilt cornices, the gaudy
wall-paper, the bright velvet table-cloths, the common oleographs
in heavy frames. The bad taste of the general effect was the more
complete from the lack of finish and the overcrowding of the room,
which gave one a feeling that something was lacking, and that a
great deal should have been thrown away. It was evident that the
furniture had not been bought all at once, but had been picked up
at auctions and other favourable opportunities.

Heaven knows what taste the lieutenant could boast of, but even he
noticed one characteristic peculiarity about the whole place, which
no luxury or style could efface--a complete absence of all trace
of womanly, careful hands, which, as we all know, give a warmth,
poetry, and snugness to the furnishing of a room. There was a
chilliness about it such as one finds in waiting-rooms at stations,
in clubs, and foyers at the theatres.

There was scarcely anything in the room definitely Jewish, except,
perhaps, a big picture of the meeting of Jacob and Esau. The
lieutenant looked round about him, and, shrugging his shoulders,
thought of his strange, new acquaintance, of her free-and-easy
manners, and her way of talking. But then the door opened, and in
the doorway appeared the lady herself, in a long black dress, so
slim and tightly laced that her figure looked as though it had been
turned in a lathe. Now the lieutenant saw not only the nose and
eyes, but also a thin white face, a head black and as curly as
lamb's-wool. She did not attract him, though she did not strike him
as ugly. He had a prejudice against un-Russian faces in general,
and he considered, too, that the lady's white face, the whiteness
of which for some reason suggested the cloying scent of jasmine,
did not go well with her little black curls and thick eyebrows;
that her nose and ears were astoundingly white, as though they
belonged to a corpse, or had been moulded out of transparent wax.
When she smiled she showed pale gums as well as her teeth, and he
did not like that either.

"Anaemic debility . . ." he thought; "she's probably as nervous as
a turkey."

"Here I am! Come along!" she said, going on rapidly ahead of him
and pulling off the yellow leaves from the plants as she passed.

"I'll give you the money directly, and if you like I'll give you
some lunch. Two thousand three hundred roubles! After such a good
stroke of business you'll have an appetite for your lunch. Do you
like my rooms? The ladies about here declare that my rooms always
smell of garlic. With that culinary gibe their stock of wit is
exhausted. I hasten to assure you that I've no garlic even in the
cellar. And one day when a doctor came to see me who smelt of garlic,
I asked him to take his hat and go and spread his fragrance elsewhere.
There is no smell of garlic here, but the place does smell of drugs.
My father lay paralyzed for a year and a half, and the whole house
smelt of medicine. A year and a half! I was sorry to lose him, but
I'm glad he's dead: he suffered so!"

She led the officer through two rooms similar to the drawing-room,
through a large reception hall, and came to a stop in her study,
where there was a lady's writing-table covered with little knick-knacks.
On the carpet near it several books lay strewn about, opened and
folded back. Through a small door leading from the study he saw a
table laid for lunch.

Still chatting, Susanna took out of her pocket a bunch of little
keys and unlocked an ingeniously made cupboard with a curved, sloping
lid. When the lid was raised the cupboard emitted a plaintive note
which made the lieutenant think of an AEolian harp. Susanna picked
out another key and clicked another lock.

"I have underground passages here and secret doors," she said,
taking out a small morocco portfolio. "It's a funny cupboard, isn't
it? And in this portfolio I have a quarter of my fortune. Look how
podgy it is! You won't strangle me, will you?"

Susanna raised her eyes to the lieutenant and laughed good-naturedly.
The lieutenant laughed too.

"She's rather jolly," he thought, watching the keys flashing between
her fingers.

"Here it is," she said, picking out the key of the portfolio. "Now,
Mr. Creditor, trot out the IOU. What a silly thing money is really!
How paltry it is, and yet how women love it! I am a Jewess, you
know, to the marrow of my bones. I am passionately fond of Shmuls
and Yankels, but how I loathe that passion for gain in our Semitic
blood. They hoard and they don't know what they are hoarding for.
One ought to live and enjoy oneself, but they're afraid of spending
an extra farthing. In that way I am more like an hussar than a
Shmul. I don't like money to be kept long in one place. And altogether
I fancy I'm not much like a Jewess. Does my accent give me away
much, eh?"

"What shall I say?" mumbled the lieutenant. "You speak good Russian,
but you do roll your _r's_."

Susanna laughed and put the little key in the lock of the portfolio.
The lieutenant took out of his pocket a little roll of IOUs and
laid them with a notebook on the table.

"Nothing betrays a Jew as much as his accent," Susanna went on,
looking gaily at the lieutenant. "However much he twists himself
into a Russian or a Frenchman, ask him to say 'feather' and he will
say 'fedder' . . . but I pronounce it correctly: 'Feather! feather!
feather!'"

Both laughed.

"By Jove, she's very jolly!" thought Sokolsky.

Susanna put the portfolio on a chair, took a step towards the
lieutenant, and bringing her face close to his, went on gaily:

"Next to the Jews I love no people so much as the Russian and the
French. I did not do much at school and I know no history, but it
seems to me that the fate of the world lies in the hands of those
two nations. I lived a long time abroad. . . . I spent six months
in Madrid. . . . I've gazed my fill at the public, and the conclusion
I've come to is that there are no decent peoples except the Russian
and the French. Take the languages, for instance. . . . The German
language is like the neighing of horses; as for the English . . .
you can't imagine anything stupider. Fight--feet--foot! Italian
is only pleasant when they speak it slowly. If you listen to Italians
gabbling, you get the effect of the Jewish jargon. And the Poles?
Mercy on us! There's no language so disgusting! 'Nie pieprz, Pietrze,
pieprzem wieprza bo mozeoz przepieprzye wieprza pieprzem.' That
means: 'Don't pepper a sucking pig with pepper, Pyotr, or perhaps
you'll over-pepper the sucking pig with pepper.' Ha, ha, ha!"

Susanna Moiseyevna rolled her eyes and broke into such a pleasant,
infectious laugh that the lieutenant, looking at her, went off into
a loud and merry peal of laughter. She took the visitor by the
button, and went on:

"You don't like Jews, of course . . . they've many faults, like all
nations. I don't dispute that. But are the Jews to blame for it?
No, it's not the Jews who are to blame, but the Jewish women! They
are narrow-minded, greedy; there's no sort of poetry about them,
they're dull. . . . You have never lived with a Jewess, so you don't
know how charming it is!" Susanna Moiseyevna pronounced the last
words with deliberate emphasis and with no eagerness or laughter.
She paused as though frightened at her own openness, and her face
was suddenly distorted in a strange, unaccountable way. Her eyes
stared at the lieutenant without blinking, her lips parted and
showed clenched teeth. Her whole face, her throat, and even her
bosom, seemed quivering with a spiteful, catlike expression. Still
keeping her eyes fixed on her visitor, she rapidly bent to one side,
and swiftly, like a cat, snatched something from the table. All
this was the work of a few seconds. Watching her movements, the
lieutenant saw five fingers crumple up his IOUs and caught a glimpse
of the white rustling paper as it disappeared in her clenched fist.
Such an extraordinary transition from good-natured laughter to crime
so appalled him that he turned pale and stepped back. . . .

And she, still keeping her frightened, searching eyes upon him,
felt along her hip with her clenched fist for her pocket. Her fist
struggled convulsively for the pocket, like a fish in the net, and
could not find the opening. In another moment the IOUs would have
vanished in the recesses of her feminine garments, but at that point
the lieutenant uttered a faint cry, and, moved more by instinct
than reflection, seized the Jewess by her arm above the clenched
fist. Showing her teeth more than ever, she struggled with all her
might and pulled her hand away. Then Sokolsky put his right arm
firmly round her waist, and the other round her chest and a struggle
followed. Afraid of outraging her sex or hurting her, he tried only
to prevent her moving, and to get hold of the fist with the IOUs;
but she wriggled like an eel in his arms with her supple, flexible
body, struck him in the chest with her elbows, and scratched him,
so that he could not help touching her all over, and was forced to
hurt her and disregard her modesty.

"How unusual this is! How strange!" he thought, utterly amazed,
hardly able to believe his senses, and feeling rather sick from the
scent of jasmine.

In silence, breathing heavily, stumbling against the furniture,
they moved about the room. Susanna was carried away by the struggle.
She flushed, closed her eyes, and forgetting herself, once even
pressed her face against the face of the lieutenant, so that there
was a sweetish taste left on his lips. At last he caught hold of
her clenched hand. . . . Forcing it open, and not finding the papers
in it, he let go the Jewess. With flushed faces and dishevelled
hair, they looked at one another, breathing hard. The spiteful,
catlike expression on the Jewess's face was gradually replaced by
a good-natured smile. She burst out laughing, and turning on one
foot, went towards the room where lunch was ready. The lieutenant
moved slowly after her. She sat down to the table, and, still flushed
and breathing hard, tossed off half a glass of port.

"Listen"--the lieutenant broke the silence--"I hope you are
joking?"

"Not a bit of it," she answered, thrusting a piece of bread into
her mouth.

"H'm! . . . How do you wish me to take all this?"

"As you choose. Sit down and have lunch!"

"But . . . it's dishonest!"

"Perhaps. But don't trouble to give me a sermon; I have my own way
of looking at things."

"Won't you give them back?"

"Of course not! If you were a poor unfortunate man, with nothing
to eat, then it would be a different matter. But--he wants to get
married!"

"It's not my money, you know; it's my cousin's!"

"And what does your cousin want with money? To get fashionable
clothes for his wife? But I really don't care whether your _belle-soeur_
has dresses or not."

The lieutenant had ceased to remember that he was in a strange house
with an unknown lady, and did not trouble himself with decorum. He
strode up and down the room, scowled and nervously fingered his
waistcoat. The fact that the Jewess had lowered herself in his eyes
by her dishonest action, made him feel bolder and more free-and-easy.

"The devil knows what to make of it!" he muttered. "Listen. I shan't
go away from here until I get the IOUs!"

"Ah, so much the better," laughed Susanna. "If you stay here for
good, it will make it livelier for me."

Excited by the struggle, the lieutenant looked at Susanna's laughing,
insolent face, at her munching mouth, at her heaving bosom, and
grew bolder and more audacious. Instead of thinking about the IOU
he began for some reason recalling with a sort of relish his cousin's
stories of the Jewess's romantic adventures, of her free way of
life, and these reminiscences only provoked him to greater audacity.
Impulsively he sat down beside the Jewess and thinking no more of
the IOUs began to eat. . . .

"Will you have vodka or wine?" Susanna asked with a laugh. "So you
will stay till you get the IOUs? Poor fellow! How many days and
nights you will have to spend with me, waiting for those IOUs! Won't
your fiancee have something to say about it?"

II

Five hours had passed. The lieutenant's cousin, Alexey Ivanovitch
Kryukov was walking about the rooms of his country-house in his
dressing-gown and slippers, and looking impatiently out of window.
He was a tall, sturdy man, with a large black beard and a manly
face; and as the Jewess had truly said, he was handsome, though he
had reached the age when men are apt to grow too stout, puffy, and
bald. By mind and temperament he was one of those natures in which
the Russian intellectual classes are so rich: warm-hearted,
good-natured, well-bred, having some knowledge of the arts and
sciences, some faith, and the most chivalrous notions about honour,
but indolent and lacking in depth. He was fond of good eating and
drinking, was an ideal whist-player, was a connoisseur in women and
horses, but in other things he was apathetic and sluggish as a seal,
and to rouse him from his lethargy something extraordinary and quite
revolting was needed, and then he would forget everything in the
world and display intense activity; he would fume and talk of a
duel, write a petition of seven pages to a Minister, gallop at
breakneck speed about the district, call some one publicly "a
scoundrel," would go to law, and so on.

"How is it our Sasha's not back yet?" he kept asking his wife,
glancing out of window. "Why, it's dinner-time!"

After waiting for the lieutenant till six o'clock, they sat down
to dinner. When supper-time came, however, Alexey Ivanovitch was
listening to every footstep, to every sound of the door, and kept
shrugging his shoulders.

"Strange!" he said. "The rascally dandy must have stayed on at the
tenant's."

As he went to bed after supper, Kryukov made up his mind that the
lieutenant was being entertained at the tenant's, where after a
festive evening he was staying the night.

Alexandr Grigoryevitch only returned next morning. He looked extremely
crumpled and confused.

"I want to speak to you alone . . ." he said mysteriously to his
cousin.

They went into the study. The lieutenant shut the door, and he paced
for a long time up and down before he began to speak.

"Something's happened, my dear fellow," he began, "that I don't
know how to tell you about. You wouldn't believe it . . ."

And blushing, faltering, not looking at his cousin, he told what
had happened with the IOUs. Kryukov, standing with his feet wide
apart and his head bent, listened and frowned.

"Are you joking?" he asked.

"How the devil could I be joking? It's no joking matter!"

"I don't understand!" muttered Kryukov, turning crimson and flinging
up his hands. "It's positively . . . immoral on your part. Before
your very eyes a hussy is up to the devil knows what, a serious
crime, plays a nasty trick, and you go and kiss her!"

"But I can't understand myself how it happened!" whispered the
lieutenant, blinking guiltily. "Upon my honour, I don't understand
it! It's the first time in my life I've come across such a monster!
It's not her beauty that does for you, not her mind, but that . . .
you understand . . . insolence, cynicism. . . ."

"Insolence, cynicism . . . it's unclean! If you've such a longing
for insolence and cynicism, you might have picked a sow out of the
mire and have devoured her alive. It would have been cheaper, anyway!
Instead of two thousand three hundred!"

"You do express yourself elegantly!" said the lieutenant, frowning.
"I'll pay you back the two thousand three hundred!"

"I know you'll pay it back, but it's not a question of money! Damn
the money! What revolts me is your being such a limp rag . . . such
filthy feebleness! And engaged! With a fiancee!"

"Don't speak of it . . ." said the lieutenant, blushing. "I loathe
myself as it is. I should like to sink into the earth. It's sickening
and vexatious that I shall have to bother my aunt for that five
thousand. . . ."

Kryukov continued for some time longer expressing his indignation
and grumbling, then, as he grew calmer, he sat down on the sofa and
began to jeer at his cousin.

"You young officers!" he said with contemptuous irony. "Nice
bridegrooms."

Suddenly he leapt up as though he had been stung, stamped his foot,
and ran about the study.

"No, I'm not going to leave it like that!" he said, shaking his
fist. "I will have those IOUs, I will! I'll give it her! One doesn't
beat women, but I'll break every bone in her body. . . . I'll pound
her to a jelly! I'm not a lieutenant! You won't touch me with
insolence or cynicism! No-o-o, damn her! Mishka!" he shouted, "run
and tell them to get the racing droshky out for me!"

Kryukov dressed rapidly, and, without heeding the agitated lieutenant,
got into the droshky, and with a wave of his hand resolutely raced
off to Susanna Moiseyevna. For a long time the lieutenant gazed out
of window at the clouds of dust that rolled after his cousin's
droshky, stretched, yawned, and went to his own room. A quarter of
an hour later he was sound asleep.

At six o'clock he was waked up and summoned to dinner.

"How nice this is of Alexey!" his cousin's wife greeted him in the
dining-room. "He keeps us waiting for dinner."

"Do you mean to say he's not come back yet?" yawned the lieutenant.
"H'm! . . . he's probably gone round to see the tenant."

But Alexey Ivanovitch was not back by supper either. His wife and
Sokolsky decided that he was playing cards at the tenant's and would
most likely stay the night there. What had happened was not what
they had supposed, however.

Kryukov returned next morning, and without greeting any one, without
a word, dashed into his study.

"Well?" whispered the lieutenant, gazing at him round-eyed.

Kryukov waved his hand and gave a snort.

"Why, what's the matter? What are you laughing at?"

Kryukov flopped on the sofa, thrust his head in the pillow, and
shook with suppressed laughter. A minute later he got up, and looking
at the surprised lieutenant, with his eyes full of tears from
laughing, said:

"Close the door. Well . . . she _is_ a fe-e-male, I beg to inform
you!"

"Did you get the IOUs?"

Kryukov waved his hand and went off into a peal of laughter again.

"Well! she is a female!" he went on. "_Merci_ for the acquaintance,
my boy! She's a devil in petticoats. I arrived; I walked in like
such an avenging Jove, you know, that I felt almost afraid of myself
. . . . I frowned, I scowled, even clenched my fists to be more
awe-inspiring. . . . 'Jokes don't pay with me, madam!' said I, and
more in that style. And I threatened her with the law and with the
Governor. To begin with she burst into tears, said she'd been joking
with you, and even took me to the cupboard to give me the money.
Then she began arguing that the future of Europe lies in the hands
of the French, and the Russians, swore at women. . . . Like you, I
listened, fascinated, ass that I was. . . . She kept singing the
praises of my beauty, patted me on the arm near the shoulder, to
see how strong I was, and . . . and as you see, I've only just got
away from her! Ha, ha! She's enthusiastic about you!"

"You're a nice fellow!" laughed the lieutenant. "A married man!
highly respected. . . . Well, aren't you ashamed? Disgusted? Joking
apart though, old man, you've got your Queen Tamara in your own
neighbourhood. . . ."

"In my own neighbourhood! Why, you wouldn't find another such
chameleon in the whole of Russia! I've never seen anything like it
in my life, though I know a good bit about women, too. I have known
regular devils in my time, but I never met anything like this. It
is, as you say, by insolence and cynicism she gets over you. What
is so attractive in her is the diabolical suddenness, the quick
transitions, the swift shifting hues. . . . Brrr! And the IOU--
phew! Write it off for lost. We are both great sinners, we'll go
halves in our sin. I shall put down to you not two thousand three
hundred, but half of it. Mind, tell my wife I was at the tenant's."

Kryukov and the lieutenant buried their heads in the pillows, and
broke into laughter; they raised their heads, glanced at one another,
and again subsided into their pillows.

"Engaged! A lieutenant!" Kryukov jeered.

"Married!" retorted Sokolsky. "Highly respected! Father of a family!"

At dinner they talked in veiled allusions, winked at one another,
and, to the surprise of the others, were continually gushing with
laughter into their dinner-napkins. After dinner, still in the best
of spirits, they dressed up as Turks, and, running after one another
with guns, played at soldiers with the children. In the evening
they had a long argument. The lieutenant maintained that it was
mean and contemptible to accept a dowry with your wife, even when
there was passionate love on both sides. Kryukov thumped the table
with his fists and declared that this was absurd, and that a husband
who did not like his wife to have property of her own was an egoist
and a despot. Both shouted, boiled over, did not understand each
other, drank a good deal, and in the end, picking up the skirts of
their dressing-gowns, went to their bedrooms. They soon fell asleep
and slept soundly.

Life went on as before, even, sluggish and free from sorrow. The
shadows lay on the earth, thunder pealed from the clouds, from time
to time the wind moaned plaintively, as though to prove that nature,
too, could lament, but nothing troubled the habitual tranquillity
of these people. Of Susanna Moiseyevna and the IOUs they said
nothing. Both of them felt, somehow, ashamed to speak of the incident
aloud. Yet they remembered it and thought of it with pleasure, as
of a curious farce, which life had unexpectedly and casually played
upon them, and which it would be pleasant to recall in old age.

On the sixth or seventh day after his visit to the Jewess, Kryukov
was sitting in his study in the morning writing a congratulatory
letter to his aunt. Alexandr Grigoryevitch was walking to and fro
near the table in silence. The lieutenant had slept badly that
night; he woke up depressed, and now he felt bored. He paced up and
down, thinking of the end of his furlough, of his fiancee, who was
expecting him, of how people could live all their lives in the
country without feeling bored. Standing at the window, for a long
time he stared at the trees, smoked three cigarettes one after
another, and suddenly turned to his cousin.

"I have a favour to ask you, Alyosha," he said. "Let me have a
saddle-horse for the day. . . ."

Kryukov looked searchingly at him and continued his writing with a
frown.

"You will, then?" asked the lieutenant.

Kryukov looked at him again, then deliberately drew out a drawer
in the table, and taking out a thick roll of notes, gave it to his
cousin.

"Here's five thousand . . ." he said. "Though it's not my money,
yet, God bless you, it's all the same. I advise you to send for
post-horses at once and go away. Yes, really!"

The lieutenant in his turn looked searchingly at Kryukov and laughed.

"You've guessed right, Alyosha," he said, reddening. "It was to her
I meant to ride. Yesterday evening when the washerwoman gave me
that damned tunic, the one I was wearing then, and it smelt of
jasmine, why . . . I felt I must go!"

"You must go away."

"Yes, certainly. And my furlough's just over. I really will go
to-day! Yes, by Jove! However long one stays, one has to go in the
end. . . . I'm going!"

The post-horses were brought after dinner the same day; the lieutenant
said good-bye to the Kryukovs and set off, followed by their good
wishes.

Another week passed. It was a dull but hot and heavy day. From early
morning Kryukov walked aimlessly about the house, looking out of
window, or turning over the leaves of albums, though he was sick
of the sight of them already. When he came across his wife or
children, he began grumbling crossly. It seemed to him, for some
reason that day, that his children's manners were revolting, that
his wife did not know how to look after the servants, that their
expenditure was quite disproportionate to their income. All this
meant that "the master" was out of humour.

After dinner, Kryukov, feeling dissatisfied with the soup and the
roast meat he had eaten, ordered out his racing droshky. He drove
slowly out of the courtyard, drove at a walking pace for a quarter
of a mile, and stopped.

"Shall I . . . drive to her . . . that devil?" he thought, looking
at the leaden sky.

And Kryukov positively laughed, as though it were the first time
that day he had asked himself that question. At once the load of
boredom was lifted from his heart, and there rose a gleam of pleasure
in his lazy eyes. He lashed the horse. . . .

All the way his imagination was picturing how surprised the Jewess
would be to see him, how he would laugh and chat, and come home
feeling refreshed. . . .

"Once a month one needs something to brighten one up . . . something
out of the common round," he thought, "something that would give
the stagnant organism a good shaking up, a reaction . . . whether
it's a drinking bout, or . . . Susanna. One can't get on without
it."

It was getting dark when he drove into the yard of the vodka
distillery. From the open windows of the owner's house came sounds
of laughter and singing:

"'Brighter than lightning, more burning than flame. . . .'"

sang a powerful, mellow, bass voice.

"Aha! she has visitors," thought Kryukov.

And he was annoyed that she had visitors.

"Shall I go back?" he thought with his hand on the bell, but he
rang all the same, and went up the familiar staircase. From the
entry he glanced into the reception hall. There were about five men
there--all landowners and officials of his acquaintance; one, a
tall, thin gentleman, was sitting at the piano, singing, and striking
the keys with his long, thin fingers. The others were listening and
grinning with enjoyment. Kryukov looked himself up and down in the
looking-glass, and was about to go into the hall, when Susanna
Moiseyevna herself darted into the entry, in high spirits and wearing
the same black dress. . . . Seeing Kryukov, she was petrified for
an instant, then she uttered a little scream and beamed with delight.

"Is it you?" she said, clutching his hand. "What a surprise!"

"Here she is!" smiled Kryukov, putting his arm round her waist.
"Well! Does the destiny of Europe still lie in the hands of the
French and the Russians?"

"I'm so glad," laughed the Jewess, cautiously removing his arm.
"Come, go into the hall; they're all friends there. . . . I'll go
and tell them to bring you some tea. Your name's Alexey, isn't it?
Well, go in, I'll come directly. . . ."

She blew him a kiss and ran out of the entry, leaving behind her
the same sickly smell of jasmine. Kryukov raised his head and walked
into the hall. He was on terms of friendly intimacy with all the
men in the room, but scarcely nodded to them; they, too, scarcely
responded, as though the places in which they met were not quite
decent, and as though they were in tacit agreement with one another
that it was more suitable for them not to recognise one another.

From the hall Kryukov walked into the drawing-room, and from it
into a second drawing-room. On the way he met three or four other
guests, also men whom he knew, though they barely recognised him.
Their faces were flushed with drink and merriment. Alexey Ivanovitch
glanced furtively at them and marvelled that these men, respectable
heads of families, who had known sorrow and privation, could demean
themselves to such pitiful, cheap gaiety! He shrugged his shoulders,
smiled, and walked on.

"There are places," he reflected, "where a sober man feels sick,
and a drunken man rejoices. I remember I never could go to the
operetta or the gipsies when I was sober: wine makes a man more
good-natured and reconciles him with vice. . . ."

Suddenly he stood still, petrified, and caught hold of the door-post
with both hands. At the writing-table in Susanna's study was sitting
Lieutenant Alexandr Grigoryevitch. He was discussing something in
an undertone with a fat, flabby-looking Jew, and seeing his cousin,
flushed crimson and looked down at an album.

The sense of decency was stirred in Kryukov and the blood rushed
to his head. Overwhelmed with amazement, shame, and anger, he walked
up to the table without a word. Sokolsky's head sank lower than
ever. His face worked with an expression of agonising shame.

"Ah, it's you, Alyosha!" he articulated, making a desperate effort
to raise his eyes and to smile. "I called here to say good-bye,
and, as you see. . . . But to-morrow I am certainly going."

"What can I say to him? What?" thought Alexey Ivanovitch. "How can
I judge him since I'm here myself?"

And clearing his throat without uttering a word, he went out slowly.

"'Call her not heavenly, and leave her on earth. . . .'"

The bass was singing in the hall. A little while after, Kryukov's
racing droshky was bumping along the dusty road.


NEIGHBOURS

PYOTR MIHALITCH IVASHIN was very much out of humour: his sister, a
young girl, had gone away to live with Vlassitch, a married man.
To shake off the despondency and depression which pursued him at
home and in the fields, he called to his aid his sense of justice,
his genuine and noble ideas--he had always defended free-love!
--but this was of no avail, and he always came back to the same
conclusion as their foolish old nurse, that his sister had acted
wrongly and that Vlassitch had abducted his sister. And that was
distressing.

His mother did not leave her room all day long; the old nurse kept
sighing and speaking in whispers; his aunt had been on the point
of taking her departure every day, and her trunks were continually
being brought down to the hall and carried up again to her room.
In the house, in the yard, and in the garden it was as still as
though there were some one dead in the house. His aunt, the servants,
and even the peasants, so it seemed to Pyotr Mihalitch, looked at
him enigmatically and with perplexity, as though they wanted to say
"Your sister has been seduced; why are you doing nothing?" And he
reproached himself for inactivity, though he did not know precisely
what action he ought to have taken.

So passed six days. On the seventh--it was Sunday afternoon--a
messenger on horseback brought a letter. The address was in a
familiar feminine handwriting: "Her Excy. Anna Nikolaevna Ivashin."
Pyotr Mihalitch fancied that there was something defiant, provocative,
in the handwriting and in the abbreviation "Excy." And advanced
ideas in women are obstinate, ruthless, cruel.

"She'd rather die than make any concession to her unhappy mother,
or beg her forgiveness," thought Pyotr Mihalitch, as he went to his
mother with the letter.

His mother was lying on her bed, dressed. Seeing her son, she rose
impulsively, and straightening her grey hair, which had fallen from
under her cap, asked quickly:

"What is it? What is it?"

"This has come . . ." said her son, giving her the letter.

Zina's name, and even the pronoun "she" was not uttered in the
house. Zina was spoken of impersonally: "this has come," "Gone
away," and so on. . . . The mother recognised her daughter's
handwriting, and her face grew ugly and unpleasant, and her grey
hair escaped again from her cap.

"No!" she said, with a motion of her hands, as though the letter
scorched her fingers. "No, no, never! Nothing would induce me!"

The mother broke into hysterical sobs of grief and shame; she
evidently longed to read the letter, but her pride prevented her.
Pyotr Mihalitch realised that he ought to open the letter himself
and read it aloud, but he was overcome by anger such as he had never
felt before; he ran out into the yard and shouted to the messenger:

"Say there will be no answer! There will be no answer! Tell them
that, you beast!"

And he tore up the letter; then tears came into his eyes, and feeling
that he was cruel, miserable, and to blame, he went out into the
fields.

He was only twenty-seven, but he was already stout. He dressed like
an old man in loose, roomy clothes, and suffered from asthma. He
already seemed to be developing the characteristics of an elderly
country bachelor. He never fell in love, never thought of marriage,
and loved no one but his mother, his sister, his old nurse, and the
gardener, Vassilitch. He was fond of good fare, of his nap after
dinner, and of talking about politics and exalted subjects. He had
in his day taken his degree at the university, but he now looked
upon his studies as though in them he had discharged a duty incumbent
upon young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five; at any
rate, the ideas which now strayed every day through his mind had
nothing in common with the university or the subjects he had studied
there.

In the fields it was hot and still, as though rain were coming. It
was steaming in the wood, and there was a heavy fragrant scent from
the pines and rotting leaves. Pyotr Mihalitch stopped several times
and wiped his wet brow. He looked at his winter corn and his spring
oats, walked round the clover-field, and twice drove away a partridge
with its chicks which had strayed in from the wood. And all the
while he was thinking that this insufferable state of things could
not go on for ever, and that he must end it one way or another. End
it stupidly, madly, but he must end it.

"But how? What can I do?" he asked himself, and looked imploringly
at the sky and at the trees, as though begging for their help.

But the sky and the trees were mute. His noble ideas were no help,
and his common sense whispered that the agonising question could
have no solution but a stupid one, and that to-day's scene with the
messenger was not the last one of its kind. It was terrible to think
what was in store for him!

As he returned home the sun was setting. By now it seemed to him
that the problem was incapable of solution. He could not accept the
accomplished fact, and he could not refuse to accept it, and there
was no intermediate course. When, taking off his hat and fanning
himself with his handkerchief, he was walking along the road, and
had only another mile and a half to go before he would reach home,
he heard bells behind him. It was a very choice and successful
combination of bells, which gave a clear crystal note. No one had
such bells on his horses but the police captain, Medovsky, formerly
an officer in the hussars, a man in broken-down health, who had
been a great rake and spendthrift, and was a distant relation of
Pyotr Mihalitch. He was like one of the family at the Ivashins' and
had a tender, fatherly affection for Zina, as well as a great
admiration for her.

"I was coming to see you," he said, overtaking Pyotr Mihalitch.
"Get in; I'll give you a lift."

He was smiling and looked cheerful. Evidently he did not yet know
that Zina had gone to live with Vlassitch; perhaps he had been told
of it already, but did not believe it. Pyotr Mihalitch felt in a
difficult position.

"You are very welcome," he muttered, blushing till the tears came
into his eyes, and not knowing how to lie or what to say. "I am
delighted," he went on, trying to smile, "but . . . Zina is away
and mother is ill."

"How annoying!" said the police captain, looking pensively at Pyotr
Mihalitch. "And I was meaning to spend the evening with you. Where
has Zinaida Mihalovna gone?"

"To the Sinitskys', and I believe she meant to go from there to the
monastery. I don't quite know."

The police captain talked a little longer and then turned back.
Pyotr Mihalitch walked home, and thought with horror what the police
captain's feelings would be when he learned the truth. And Pyotr
Mihalitch imagined his feelings, and actually experiencing them
himself, went into the house.

"Lord help us," he thought, "Lord help us!"

At evening tea the only one at the table was his aunt. As usual,
her face wore the expression that seemed to say that though she was
a weak, defenceless woman, she would allow no one to insult her.
Pyotr Mihalitch sat down at the other end of the table (he did not
like his aunt) and began drinking tea in silence.

"Your mother has had no dinner again to-day," said his aunt. "You
ought to do something about it, Petrusha. Starving oneself is no
help in sorrow."

It struck Pyotr Mihalitch as absurd that his aunt should meddle in
other people's business and should make her departure depend on
Zina's having gone away. He was tempted to say something rude to
her, but restrained himself. And as he restrained himself he felt
the time had come for action, and that he could not bear it any
longer. Either he must act at once or fall on the ground, and scream
and bang his head upon the floor. He pictured Vlassitch and Zina,
both of them progressive and self-satisfied, kissing each other
somewhere under a maple tree, and all the anger and bitterness that
had been accumulating in him for the last seven days fastened upon
Vlassitch.

"One has seduced and abducted my sister," he thought, "another will
come and murder my mother, a third will set fire to the house and
sack the place. . . . And all this under the mask of friendship,
lofty ideas, unhappiness!"

"No, it shall not be!" Pyotr Mihalitch cried suddenly, and he brought
his fist down on the table.

He jumped up and ran out of the dining-room. In the stable the
steward's horse was standing ready saddled. He got on it and galloped
off to Vlassitch.

There was a perfect tempest within him. He felt a longing to do
something extraordinary, startling, even if he had to repent of it
all his life afterwards. Should he call Vlassitch a blackguard,
slap him in the face, and then challenge him to a duel? But Vlassitch
was not one of those men who do fight duels; being called a blackguard
and slapped in the face would only make him more unhappy, and would
make him shrink into himself more than ever. These unhappy, defenceless
people are the most insufferable, the most tiresome creatures in
the world. They can do anything with impunity. When the luckless
man responds to well-deserved reproach by looking at you with eyes
full of deep and guilty feeling, and with a sickly smile bends his
head submissively, even justice itself could not lift its hand
against him.

"No matter. I'll horsewhip him before her eyes and tell him what I
think of him," Pyotr Mihalitch decided.

He was riding through his wood and waste land, and he imagined Zina
would try to justify her conduct by talking about the rights of
women and individual freedom, and about there being no difference
between legal marriage and free union. Like a woman, she would argue
about what she did not understand. And very likely at the end she
would ask, "How do you come in? What right have you to interfere?"

"No, I have no right," muttered Pyotr Mihalitch. "But so much the
better. . . . The harsher I am, the less right I have to interfere,
the better."

It was sultry. Clouds of gnats hung over the ground and in the waste
places the peewits called plaintively. Everything betokened rain,
but he could not see a cloud in the sky. Pyotr Mihalitch crossed
the boundary of his estate and galloped over a smooth, level field.
He often went along this road and knew every bush, every hollow in
it. What now in the far distance looked in the dusk like a dark
cliff was a red church; he could picture it all down to the smallest
detail, even the plaster on the gate and the calves that were always
grazing in the church enclosure. Three-quarters of a mile to the
right of the church there was a copse like a dark blur--it was
Count Koltonovitch's. And beyond the church Vlassitch's estate
began.

From behind the church and the count's copse a huge black storm-cloud
was rising, and there were ashes of white lightning.

"Here it is!" thought Pyotr Mihalitch. "Lord help us, Lord help
us!"

The horse was soon tired after its quick gallop, and Pyotr Mihalitch
was tired too. The storm-cloud looked at him angrily and seemed to
advise him to go home. He felt a little scared.

"I will prove to them they are wrong," he tried to reassure himself.
"They will say that it is free-love, individual freedom; but freedom
means self-control and not subjection to passion. It's not liberty
but license!"

He reached the count's big pond; it looked dark blue and frowning
under the cloud, and a smell of damp and slime rose from it. Near
the dam, two willows, one old and one young, drooped tenderly towards
one another. Pyotr Mihalitch and Vlassitch had been walking near
this very spot only a fortnight before, humming a students' song:

"'Youth is wasted, life is nought, when the heart is cold and
loveless.'"

A wretched song!

It was thundering as Pyotr Mihalitch rode through the copse, and
the trees were bending and rustling in the wind. He had to make
haste. It was only three-quarters of a mile through a meadow from
the copse to Vlassitch's house. Here there were old birch-trees on
each side of the road. They had the same melancholy and unhappy air
as their owner Vlassitch, and looked as tall and lanky as he. Big
drops of rain pattered on the birches and on the grass; the wind
had suddenly dropped, and there was a smell of wet earth and poplars.
Before him he saw Vlassitch's fence with a row of yellow acacias,
which were tall and lanky too; where the fence was broken he could
see the neglected orchard.

Pyotr Mihalitch was not thinking now of the horsewhip or of a slap
in the face, and did not know what he would do at Vlassitch's. He
felt nervous. He felt frightened on his own account and on his
sister's, and was terrified at the thought of seeing her. How would
she behave with her brother? What would they both talk about? And
had he not better go back before it was too late? As he made these
reflections, he galloped up the avenue of lime-trees to the house,
rode round the big clumps of lilacs, and suddenly saw Vlassitch.

Vlassitch, wearing a cotton shirt, and top-boots, bending forward,
with no hat on in the rain, was coming from the corner of the house
to the front door. He was followed by a workman with a hammer and
a box of nails. They must have been mending a shutter which had
been banging in the wind. Seeing Pyotr Mihalitch, Vlassitch stopped.

"It's you!" he said, smiling. "That's nice."

"Yes, I've come, as you see," said Pyotr Mihalitch, brushing the
rain off himself with both hands.

"Well, that's capital! I'm very glad," said Vlassitch, but he did
not hold out his hand: evidently he did not venture, but waited for
Pyotr Mihalitch to hold out his. "It will do the oats good," he
said, looking at the sky.

"Yes."

They went into the house in silence. To the right of the hall was
a door leading to another hall and then to the drawing-room, and
on the left was a little room which in winter was used by the
steward. Pyotr Mihalitch and Vlassitch went into this little room.

"Where were you caught in the rain?"

"Not far off, quite close to the house."

Pyotr Mihalitch sat down on the bed. He was glad of the noise of
the rain and the darkness of the room. It was better: it made it
less dreadful, and there was no need to see his companion's face.
There was no anger in his heart now, nothing but fear and vexation
with himself. He felt he had made a bad beginning, and that nothing
would come of this visit.

Both were silent for some time and affected to be listening to the
rain.

"Thank you, Petrusha," Vlassitch began, clearing his throat. "I am
very grateful to you for coming. It's generous and noble of you. I
understand it, and, believe me, I appreciate it. Believe me."

He looked out of the window and went on, standing in the middle of
the room:

"Everything happened so secretly, as though we were concealing it
all from you. The feeling that you might be wounded and angry has
been a blot on our happiness all these days. But let me justify
myself. We kept it secret not because we did not trust you. To begin
with, it all happened suddenly, by a kind of inspiration; there was
no time to discuss it. Besides, it's such a private, delicate matter,
and it was awkward to bring a third person in, even some one as
intimate as you. Above all, in all this we reckoned on your generosity.
You are a very noble and generous person. I am infinitely grateful
to you. If you ever need my life, come and take it."

Vlassitch talked in a quiet, hollow bass, always on the same droning
note; he was evidently agitated. Pyotr Mihalitch felt it was his
turn to speak, and that to listen and keep silent would really mean
playing the part of a generous and noble simpleton, and that had
not been his idea in coming. He got up quickly and said, breathlessly
in an undertone:

"Listen, Grigory. You know I liked you and could have desired no
better husband for my sister; but what has happened is awful! It's
terrible to think of it!"

"Why is it terrible?" asked Vlassitch, with a quiver in his voice.
"It would be terrible if we had done wrong, but that isn't so."

"Listen, Grigory. You know I have no prejudices; but, excuse my
frankness, to my mind you have both acted selfishly. Of course, I
shan't say so to my sister--it will distress her; but you ought
to know: mother is miserable beyond all description."

"Yes, that's sad," sighed Vlassitch. "We foresaw that, Petrusha,
but what could we have done? Because one's actions hurt other people,
it doesn't prove that they are wrong. What's to be done! Every
important step one takes is bound to distress somebody. If you went
to fight for freedom, that would distress your mother, too. What's
to be done! Any one who puts the peace of his family before everything
has to renounce the life of ideas completely."

There was a vivid flash of lightning at the window, and the lightning
seemed to change the course of Vlassitch's thoughts. He sat down
beside Pyotr Mihalitch and began saying what was utterly beside the
point.

"I have such a reverence for your sister, Petrusha," he said. "When
I used to come and see you, I felt as though I were going to a holy
shrine, and I really did worship Zina. Now my reverence for her
grows every day. For me she is something higher than a wife--yes,
higher!" Vlassitch waved his hands. "She is my holy of holies. Since
she is living with me, I enter my house as though it were a temple.
She is an extraordinary, rare, most noble woman!"

"Well, he's off now!" thought Pyotr Mihalitch; he disliked the word
"woman."

"Why shouldn't you be married properly?" he asked. "How much does
your wife want for a divorce?"

"Seventy-five thousand."

"It's rather a lot. But if we were to negotiate with her?"

"She won't take a farthing less. She is an awful woman, brother,"
sighed Vlassitch. "I've never talked to you about her before--it
was unpleasant to think of her; but now that the subject has come
up, I'll tell you about her. I married her on the impulse of the
moment--a fine, honourable impulse. An officer in command of a
battalion of our regiment--if you care to hear the details--had
an affair with a girl of eighteen; that is, to put it plainly, he
seduced her, lived with her for two months, and abandoned her. She
was in an awful position, brother. She was ashamed to go home to
her parents; besides, they wouldn't have received her. Her lover
had abandoned her; there was nothing left for her but to go to the
barracks and sell herself. The other officers in the regiment were
indignant. They were by no means saints themselves, but the baseness
of it was so striking. Besides, no one in the regiment could endure
the man. And to spite him, you understand, the indignant lieutenants
and ensigns began getting up a subscription for the unfortunate
girl. And when we subalterns met together and began to subscribe
five or ten roubles each, I had a sudden inspiration. I felt it was
an opportunity to do something fine. I hastened to the girl and
warmly expressed my sympathy. And while I was on my way to her, and
while I was talking to her, I loved her fervently as a woman insulted
and injured. Yes. . . . Well, a week later I made her an offer. The
colonel and my comrades thought my marriage out of keeping with the
dignity of an officer. That roused me more than ever. I wrote a
long letter, do you know, in which I proved that my action ought
to be inscribed in the annals of the regiment in letters of gold,
and so on. I sent the letter to my colonel and copies to my comrades.
Well, I was excited, and, of course, I could not avoid being rude.
I was asked to leave the regiment. I have a rough copy of it put
away somewhere; I'll give it to you to read sometime. It was written
with great feeling. You will see what lofty and noble sentiments I
was experiencing. I resigned my commission and came here with my
wife. My father had left a few debts, I had no money, and from the
first day my wife began making acquaintances, dressing herself
smartly, and playing cards, and I was obliged to mortgage the estate.
She led a bad life, you understand, and you are the only one of the
neighbours who hasn't been her lover. After two years I gave her
all I had to set me free and she went off to town. Yes. . . . And
now I pay her twelve hundred roubles a year. She is an awful woman!
There is a fly, brother, which lays an egg in the back of a spider
so that the spider can't shake it off: the grub fastens upon the
spider and drinks its heart's blood. That was how this woman fastened
upon me and sucks the blood of my heart. She hates and despises me
for being so stupid; that is, for marrying a woman like her. My
chivalry seems to her despicable. 'A wise man cast me off,' she
says, 'and a fool picked me up.' To her thinking no one but a pitiful
idiot could have behaved as I did. And that is insufferably bitter
to me, brother. Altogether, I may say in parenthesis, fate has been
hard upon me, very hard."

Pyotr Mihalitch listened to Vlassitch and wondered in perplexity
what it was in this man that had so charmed his sister. He was not
young--he was forty-one--lean and lanky, narrow-chested, with
a long nose, and grey hairs in his beard. He talked in a droning
voice, had a sickly smile, and waved his hands awkwardly as he
talked. He had neither health, nor pleasant, manly manners, nor
_savoir-faire_, nor gaiety, and in all his exterior there was
something colourless and indefinite. He dressed without taste, his
surroundings were depressing, he did not care for poetry or painting
because "they have no answer to give to the questions of the day"
--that is, he did not understand them; music did not touch him.
He was a poor farmer.

His estate was in a wretched condition and was mortgaged; he was
paying twelve percent on the second mortgage and owed ten thousand
on personal securities as well. When the time came to pay the
interest on the mortgage or to send money to his wife, he asked
every one to lend him money with as much agitation as though his
house were on fire, and, at the same time losing his head, he would
sell the whole of his winter store of fuel for five roubles and a
stack of straw for three roubles, and then have his garden fence
or old cucumber-frames chopped up to heat his stoves. His meadows
were ruined by pigs, the peasants' cattle strayed in the undergrowth
in his woods, and every year the old trees were fewer and fewer:
beehives and rusty pails lay about in his garden and kitchen-garden.
He had neither talents nor abilities, nor even ordinary capacity
for living like other people. In practical life he was a weak, naive
man, easy to deceive and to cheat, and the peasants with good reason
called him "simple."

He was a Liberal, and in the district was regarded as a "Red," but
even his progressiveness was a bore. There was no originality nor
moving power about his independent views: he was revolted, indignant,
and delighted always on the same note; it was always spiritless and
ineffective. Even in moments of strong enthusiasm he never raised
his head or stood upright. But the most tiresome thing of all was
that he managed to express even his best and finest ideas so that
they seemed in him commonplace and out of date. It reminded one of
something old one had read long ago, when slowly and with an air
of profundity he would begin discoursing of his noble, lofty moments,
of his best years; or when he went into raptures over the younger
generation, which has always been, and still is, in advance of
society; or abused Russians for donning their dressing-gowns at
thirty and forgetting the principles of their _alma mater_. If you
stayed the night with him, he would put Pissarev or Darwin on your
bedroom table; if you said you had read it, he would go and bring
Dobrolubov.

In the district this was called free-thinking, and many people
looked upon this free-thinking as an innocent and harmless eccentricity;
it made him profoundly unhappy, however. It was for him the maggot
of which he had just been speaking; it had fastened upon him and
was sucking his life-blood. In his past there had been the strange
marriage in the style of Dostoevsky; long letters and copies written
in a bad, unintelligible hand-writing, but with great feeling,
endless misunderstandings, explanations, disappointments, then
debts, a second mortgage, the allowance to his wife, the monthly
borrowing of money--and all this for no benefit to any one, either
himself or others. And in the present, as in the past, he was still
in a nervous flurry, on the lookout for heroic actions, and poking
his nose into other people's affairs; as before, at every favourable
opportunity there were long letters and copies, wearisome, stereotyped
conversations about the village community, or the revival of
handicrafts or the establishment of cheese factories--conversations
as like one another as though he had prepared them, not in his
living brain, but by some mechanical process. And finally this
scandal with Zina of which one could not see the end!

And meanwhile Zina was young--she was only twenty-two--good-looking,
elegant, gay; she was fond of laughing, chatter, argument, a
passionate musician; she had good taste in dress, in furniture, in
books, and in her own home she would not have put up with a room
like this, smelling of boots and cheap vodka. She, too, had advanced
ideas, but in her free-thinking one felt the overflow of energy,
the vanity of a young, strong, spirited girl, passionately eager
to be better and more original than others. . . . How had it happened
that she had fallen in love with Vlassitch?

"He is a Quixote, an obstinate fanatic, a maniac," thought Pyotr
Mihalitch, "and she is as soft, yielding, and weak in character as
I am. . . . She and I give in easily, without resistance. She loves
him; but, then, I, too, love him in spite of everything."

Pyotr Mihalitch considered Vlassitch a good, straightforward man,
but narrow and one-sided. In his perturbations and his sufferings,
and in fact in his whole life, he saw no lofty aims, remote or
immediate; he saw nothing but boredom and incapacity for life. His
self-sacrifice and all that Vlassitch himself called heroic actions
or noble impulses seemed to him a useless waste of force, unnecessary
blank shots which consumed a great deal of powder. And Vlassitch's
fanatical belief in the extraordinary loftiness and faultlessness
of his own way of thinking struck him as naive and even morbid; and
the fact that Vlassitch all his life had contrived to mix the trivial
with the exalted, that he had made a stupid marriage and looked
upon it as an act of heroism, and then had affairs with other women
and regarded that as a triumph of some idea or other was simply
incomprehensible.

Nevertheless, Pyotr Mihalitch was fond of Vlassitch; he was conscious
of a sort of power in him, and for some reason he had never had the
heart to contradict him.

Vlassitch sat down quite close to him for a talk in the dark, to
the accompaniment of the rain, and he had cleared his throat as a
prelude to beginning on something lengthy, such as the history of
his marriage. But it was intolerable for Pyotr Mihalitch to listen
to him; he was tormented by the thought that he would see his sister
directly.

"Yes, you've had bad luck," he said gently; "but, excuse me, we've
been wandering from the point. That's not what we are talking about."

"Yes, yes, quite so. Well, let us come back to the point," said
Vlassitch, and he stood up. "I tell you, Petrusha, our conscience
is clear. We are not married, but there is no need for me to prove
to you that our marriage is perfectly legitimate. You are as free
in your ideas as I am, and, happily, there can be no disagreement
between us on that point. As for our future, that ought not to alarm
you. I'll work in the sweat of my brow, I'll work day and night--
in fact, I will strain every nerve to make Zina happy. Her life
will be a splendid one! You may ask, am I able to do it. I am,
brother! When a man devotes every minute to one thought, it's not
difficult for him to attain his object. But let us go to Zina; it
will be a joy to her to see you."

Pyotr Mihalitch's heart began to beat. He got up and followed
Vlassitch into the hall, and from there into the drawing-room. There
was nothing in the huge gloomy room but a piano and a long row of
old chairs ornamented with bronze, on which no one ever sat. There
was a candle alight on the piano. From the drawing-room they went
in silence into the dining-room. This room, too, was large and
comfortless; in the middle of the room there was a round table with
two leaves with six thick legs, and only one candle. A clock in a
large mahogany case like an ikon stand pointed to half-past two.

Vlassitch opened the door into the next room and said:

"Zina, here is Petrusha come to see us!"

At once there was the sound of hurried footsteps and Zina came into
the dining-room. She was tall, plump, and very pale, and, just as
when he had seen her for the last time at home, she was wearing a
black skirt and a red blouse, with a large buckle on her belt. She
flung one arm round her brother and kissed him on the temple.

"What a storm!" she said. "Grigory went off somewhere and I was
left quite alone in the house."

She was not embarrassed, and looked at her brother as frankly and
candidly as at home; looking at her, Pyotr Mihalitch, too, lost his
embarrassment.

"But you are not afraid of storms," he said, sitting down at the
table.

"No," she said, "but here the rooms are so big, the house is so
old, and when there is thunder it all rattles like a cupboard full
of crockery. It's a charming house altogether," she went on, sitting
down opposite her brother. "There's some pleasant memory in every
room. In my room, only fancy, Grigory's grandfather shot himself."

"In August we shall have the money to do up the lodge in the garden,"
said Vlassitch.

"For some reason when it thunders I think of that grandfather,"
Zina went on. "And in this dining-room somebody was flogged to
death."

"That's an actual fact," said Vlassitch, and he looked with wide-open
eyes at Pyotr Mihalitch. "Sometime in the forties this place was
let to a Frenchman called Olivier. The portrait of his daughter is
lying in an attic now--a very pretty girl. This Olivier, so my
father told me, despised Russians for their ignorance and treated
them with cruel derision. Thus, for instance, he insisted on the
priest walking without his hat for half a mile round his house, and
on the church bells being rung when the Olivier family drove through
the village. The serfs and altogether the humble of this world, of
course, he treated with even less ceremony. Once there came along
this road one of the simple-hearted sons of wandering Russia,
somewhat after the style of Gogol's divinity student, Homa Brut.
He asked for a night's lodging, pleased the bailiffs, and was given
a job at the office of the estate. There are many variations of the
story. Some say the divinity student stirred up the peasants, others
that Olivier' s daughter fell in love with him. I don't know which
is true, only one fine evening Olivier called him in here and
cross-examined him, then ordered him to be beaten. Do you know, he
sat here at this table drinking claret while the stable-boys beat
the man. He must have tried to wring something out of him. Towards
morning the divinity student died of the torture and his body was
hidden. They say it was thrown into Koltovitch's pond. There was
an inquiry, but the Frenchman paid some thousands to some one in
authority and went away to Alsace. His lease was up just then, and
so the matter ended."

"What scoundrels!" said Zina, shuddering.

"My father remembered Olivier and his daughter well. He used to say
she was remarkably beautiful and eccentric. I imagine the divinity
student had done both--stirred up the peasants and won the
daughter's heart. Perhaps he wasn't a divinity student at all, but
some one travelling incognito."

Zina grew thoughtful; the story of the divinity student and the
beautiful French girl had evidently carried her imagination far
away. It seemed to Pyotr Mihalitch that she had not changed in the
least during the last week, except that she was a little paler. She
looked calm and just as usual, as though she had come with her
brother to visit Vlassitch. But Pyotr Mihalitch felt that some
change had taken place in himself. Before, when she was living at
home, he could have spoken to her about anything, and now he did
not feel equal to asking her the simple question, "How do you like
being here?" The question seemed awkward and unnecessary. Probably
the same change had taken place in her. She was in no haste to turn
the conversation to her mother, to her home, to her relations with
Vlassitch; she did not defend herself, she did not say that free
unions are better than marriages in the church; she was not agitated,
and calmly brooded over the story of Olivier. . . . And why had
they suddenly begun talking of Olivier?

"You are both of you wet with the rain," said Zina, and she smiled
joyfully; she was touched by this point of resemblance between her
brother and Vlassitch.

And Pyotr Mihalitch felt all the bitterness and horror of his
position. He thought of his deserted home, the closed piano, and
Zina's bright little room into which no one went now; he thought
there were no prints of little feet on the garden-paths, and that
before tea no one went off, laughing gaily, to bathe. What he had
clung to more and more from his childhood upwards, what he had loved
thinking about when he used to sit in the stuffy class-room or the
lecture theatre--brightness, purity, and joy, everything that
filled the house with life and light, had gone never to return, had
vanished, and was mixed up with a coarse, clumsy story of some
battalion officer, a chivalrous lieutenant, a depraved woman and a
grandfather who had shot himself. . . . And to begin to talk about
his mother or to think that the past could ever return would mean
not understanding what was clear.

Pyotr Mihalitch's eyes filled with tears and his hand began to
tremble as it lay on the table. Zina guessed what he was thinking
about, and her eyes, too, glistened and looked red.

"Grigory, come here," she said to Vlassitch.

They walked away to the window and began talking of something in a
whisper. From the way that Vlassitch stooped down to her and the
way she looked at him, Pyotr Mihalitch realised again that everything
was irreparably over, and that it was no use to talk of anything.
Zina went out of the room.

"Well, brother!" Vlassitch began, after a brief silence, rubbing
his hands and smiling. "I called our life happiness just now, but
that was, so to speak, poetical license. In reality, there has not
been a sense of happiness so far. Zina has been thinking all the
time of you, of her mother, and has been worrying; looking at her,
I, too, felt worried. Hers is a bold, free nature, but, you know,
it's difficult when you're not used to it, and she is young, too.
The servants call her 'Miss'; it seems a trifle, but it upsets her.
There it is, brother."

Zina brought in a plateful of strawberries. She was followed by a
little maidservant, looking crushed and humble, who set a jug of
milk on the table and made a very low bow: she had something about
her that was in keeping with the old furniture, something petrified
and dreary.

The sound of the rain had ceased. Pyotr Mihalitch ate strawberries
while Vlassitch and Zina looked at him in silence. The moment of
the inevitable but useless conversation was approaching, and all
three felt the burden of it. Pyotr Mihalitch's eyes filled with
tears again; he pushed away his plate and said that he must be going
home, or it would be getting late, and perhaps it would rain again.
The time had come when common decency required Zina to speak of
those at home and of her new life.

"How are things at home?" she asked rapidly, and her pale face
quivered. "How is mother?"

"You know mother . . ." said Pyotr Mihalitch, not looking at her.

"Petrusha, you've thought a great deal about what has happened,"
she said, taking hold of her brother's sleeve, and he knew how hard
it was for her to speak. "You've thought a great deal: tell me, can
we reckon on mother's accepting Grigory . . . and the whole position,
one day?"

She stood close to her brother, face to face with him, and he was
astonished that she was so beautiful, and that he seemed not to
have noticed it before. And it seemed to him utterly absurd that
his sister, so like his mother, pampered, elegant, should be living
with Vlassitch and in Vlassitch's house, with the petrified servant,
and the table with six legs--in the house where a man had been
flogged to death, and that she was not going home with him, but was
staying here to sleep.

"You know mother," he said, not answering her question. "I think
you ought to have . . . to do something, to ask her forgiveness or
something. . . ."

"But to ask her forgiveness would mean pretending we had done wrong.
I'm ready to tell a lie to comfort mother, but it won't lead anywhere.
I know mother. Well, what will be, must be!" said Zina, growing
more cheerful now that the most unpleasant had been said. "We'll
wait for five years, ten years, and be patient, and then God's will
be done."

She took her brother's arm, and when she walked through the dark
hall she squeezed close to him. They went out on the steps. Pyotr
Mihalitch said good-bye, got on his horse, and set off at a walk;
Zina and Vlassitch walked a little way with him. It was still and
warm, with a delicious smell of hay; stars were twinkling brightly
between the clouds. Vlassitch's old garden, which had seen so many
gloomy stories in its time, lay slumbering in the darkness, and for
some reason it was mournful riding through it.

"Zina and I to-day after dinner spent some really exalted moments,"
said Vlassitch. "I read aloud to her an excellent article on the
question of emigration. You must read it, brother! You really must.
It's remarkable for its lofty tone. I could not resist writing a
letter to the editor to be forwarded to the author. I wrote only a
single line: 'I thank you and warmly press your noble hand.'"

Pyotr Mihalitch was tempted to say, "Don't meddle in what does not
concern you," but he held his tongue.

Vlassitch walked by his right stirrup and Zina by the left; both
seemed to have forgotten that they had to go home. It was damp, and
they had almost reached Koltovitch's copse. Pyotr Mihalitch felt
that they were expecting something from him, though they hardly
knew what it was, and he felt unbearably sorry for them. Now as
they walked by the horse with submissive faces, lost in thought,
he had a deep conviction that they were unhappy, and could not be
happy, and their love seemed to him a melancholy, irreparable
mistake. Pity and the sense that he could do nothing to help them
reduced him to that state of spiritual softening when he was ready
to make any sacrifice to get rid of the painful feeling of sympathy.

"I'll come over sometimes for a night," he said.

But it sounded as though he were making a concession, and did not
satisfy him. When they stopped near Koltovitch's copse to say
good-bye, he bent down to Zina, touched her shoulder, and said:

"You are right, Zina! You have done well." To avoid saying more and
bursting into tears, he lashed his horse and galloped into the wood.
As he rode into the darkness, he looked round and saw Vlassitch and
Zina walking home along the road--he taking long strides, while
she walked with a hurried, jerky step beside him--talking eagerly
about something.

"I am an old woman!" thought Pyotr Mihalitch. "I went to solve the
question and I have only made it more complicated--there it is!"

He was heavy at heart. When he got out of the copse he rode at a
walk and then stopped his horse near the pond. He wanted to sit and
think without moving. The moon was rising and was reflected in a
streak of red on the other side of the pond. There were low rumbles
of thunder in the distance. Pyotr Mihalitch looked steadily at the
water and imagined his sister's despair, her martyr-like pallor,
the tearless eyes with which she would conceal her humiliation from
others. He imagined her with child, imagined the death of their
mother, her funeral, Zina's horror. . . . The proud, superstitious
old woman would be sure to die of grief. Terrible pictures of the
future rose before him on the background of smooth, dark water, and
among pale feminine figures he saw himself, a weak, cowardly man
with a guilty face.

A hundred paces off on the right bank of the pond, something dark
was standing motionless: was it a man or a tall post? Pyotr Mihalitch
thought of the divinity student who had been killed and thrown into
the pond.

"Olivier behaved inhumanly, but one way or another he did settle
the question, while I have settled nothing and have only made it
worse," he thought, gazing at the dark figure that looked like a
ghost. "He said and did what he thought right while I say and do
what I don't think right; and I don't know really what I do
think. . . ."

He rode up to the dark figure: it was an old rotten post, the relic
of some shed.

From Koltovitch's copse and garden there came a strong fragrant
scent of lilies of the valley and honey-laden flowers. Pyotr Mihalitch
rode along the bank of the pond and looked mournfully into the
water. And thinking about his life, he came to the conclusion he
had never said or acted upon what he really thought, and other
people had repaid him in the same way. And so the whole of life
seemed to him as dark as this water in which the night sky was
reflected and water-weeds grew in a tangle. And it seemed to him
that nothing could ever set it right.


AT HOME

I

THE Don railway. A quiet, cheerless station, white and solitary in
the steppe, with its walls baking in the sun, without a speck of
shade, and, it seems, without a human being. The train goes on after
leaving one here; the sound of it is scarcely audible and dies away
at last. Outside the station it is a desert, and there are no horses
but one's own. One gets into the carriage--which is so pleasant
after the train--and is borne along the road through the steppe,
and by degrees there are unfolded before one views such as one does
not see near Moscow--immense, endless, fascinating in their
monotony. The steppe, the steppe, and nothing more; in the distance
an ancient barrow or a windmill; ox-waggons laden with coal trail
by. . . . Solitary birds fly low over the plain, and a drowsy feeling
comes with the monotonous beat of their wings. It is hot. Another
hour or so passes, and still the steppe, the steppe, and still in
the distance the barrow. The driver tells you something, some long
unnecessary tale, pointing into the distance with his whip. And
tranquillity takes possession of the soul; one is loth to think of
the past. . . .

A carriage with three horses had been sent to fetch Vera Ivanovna
Kardin. The driver put in her luggage and set the harness to rights.

"Everything just as it always has been," said Vera, looking about
her. "I was a little girl when I was here last, ten years ago. I
remember old Boris came to fetch me then. Is he still living, I
wonder?"

The driver made no reply, but, like a Little Russian, looked at her
angrily and clambered on to the box.

It was a twenty-mile drive from the station, and Vera, too, abandoned
herself to the charm of the steppe, forgot the past, and thought
only of the wide expanse, of the freedom. Healthy, clever, beautiful,
and young--she was only three-and-twenty--she had hitherto
lacked nothing in her life but just this space and freedom.

The steppe, the steppe. . . . The horses trotted, the sun rose
higher and higher; and it seemed to Vera that never in her childhood
had the steppe been so rich, so luxuriant in June; the wild flowers
were green, yellow, lilac, white, and a fragrance rose from them
and from the warmed earth; and there were strange blue birds along
the roadside. . . . Vera had long got out of the habit of praying,
but now, struggling with drowsiness, she murmured:

"Lord, grant that I may be happy here."

And there was peace and sweetness in her soul, and she felt as
though she would have been glad to drive like that all her life,
looking at the steppe.

Suddenly there was a deep ravine overgrown with oak saplings and
alder-trees; there was a moist feeling in the air--there must
have been a spring at the bottom. On the near side, on the very
edge of the ravine, a covey of partridges rose noisily. Vera
remembered that in old days they used to go for evening walks to
this ravine; so it must be near home! And now she could actually
see the poplars, the barn, black smoke rising on one side--they
were burning old straw. And there was Auntie Dasha coming to meet
her and waving her handkerchief; grandfather was on the terrace.
Oh dear, how happy she was!

"My darling, my darling!" cried her aunt, shrieking as though she
were in hysterics. "Our real mistress has come! You must understand
you are our mistress, you are our queen! Here everything is yours!
My darling, my beauty, I am not your aunt, but your willing slave!"

Vera had no relations but her aunt and her grandfather; her mother
had long been dead; her father, an engineer, had died three months
before at Kazan, on his way from Siberia. Her grandfather had a big
grey beard. He was stout, red-faced, and asthmatic, and walked
leaning on a cane and sticking his stomach out. Her aunt, a lady
of forty-two, drawn in tightly at the waist and fashionably dressed
with sleeves high on the shoulder, evidently tried to look young
and was still anxious to be charming; she walked with tiny steps
with a wriggle of her spine.

"Will you love us?" she said, embracing Vera, "You are not proud?"

At her grandfather's wish there was a thanksgiving service, then
they spent a long while over dinner--and Vera's new life began.
She was given the best room. All the rugs in the house had been put
in it, and a great many flowers; and when at night she lay down in
her snug, wide, very soft bed and covered herself with a silk quilt
that smelt of old clothes long stored away, she laughed with pleasure.
Auntie Dasha came in for a minute to wish her good-night.

"Here you are home again, thank God," she said, sitting down on the
bed. "As you see, we get along very well and have everything we
want. There's only one thing: your grandfather is in a poor way! A
terribly poor way! He is short of breath and he has begun to lose
his memory. And you remember how strong, how vigorous, he used to
be! There was no doing anything with him. . . . In old days, if the
servants didn't please him or anything else went wrong, he would
jump up at once and shout: 'Twenty-five strokes! The birch!' But
now he has grown milder and you never hear him. And besides, times
are changed, my precious; one mayn't beat them nowadays. Of course,
they oughtn't to be beaten, but they need looking after."

"And are they beaten now, auntie?" asked Vera.

"The steward beats them sometimes, but I never do, bless their
hearts! And your grandfather sometimes lifts his stick from old
habit, but he never beats them."

Auntie Dasha yawned and crossed herself over her mouth and her right
ear.

"It's not dull here?" Vera inquired.

"What shall I say? There are no landowners living here now, but
there have been works built near, darling, and there are lots of
engineers, doctors, and mine managers. Of course, we have theatricals
and concerts, but we play cards more than anything. They come to
us, too. Dr. Neshtchapov from the works comes to see us--such a
handsome, interesting man! He fell in love with your photograph. I
made up my mind: he is Verotchka's destiny, I thought. He's young,
handsome, he has means--a good match, in fact. And of course
you're a match for any one. You're of good family. The place is
mortgaged, it's true, but it's in good order and not neglected;
there is my share in it, but it will all come to you; I am your
willing slave. And my brother, your father, left you fifteen thousand
roubles. . . . But I see you can't keep your eyes open. Sleep, my
child."

Next day Vera spent a long time walking round the house. The garden,
which was old and unattractive, lying inconveniently upon the slope,
had no paths, and was utterly neglected; probably the care of it
was regarded as an unnecessary item in the management. There were
numbers of grass-snakes. Hoopoes flew about under the trees calling
"Oo-too-toot!" as though they were trying to remind her of something.
At the bottom of the hill there was a river overgrown with tall
reeds, and half a mile beyond the river was the village. From the
garden Vera went out into the fields; looking into the distance,
thinking of her new life in her own home, she kept trying to grasp
what was in store for her. The space, the lovely peace of the steppe,
told her that happiness was near at hand, and perhaps was here
already; thousands of people, in fact, would have said: "What
happiness to be young, healthy, well-educated, to be living on one's
own estate!" And at the same time the endless plain, all alike,
without one living soul, frightened her, and at moments it was clear
to her that its peaceful green vastness would swallow up her life
and reduce it to nothingness. She was very young, elegant, fond of
life; she had finished her studies at an aristocratic boarding-school,
had learnt three languages, had read a great deal, had travelled
with her father--and could all this have been meant to lead to
nothing but settling down in a remote country-house in the steppe,
and wandering day after day from the garden into the fields and
from the fields into the garden to while away the time, and then
sitting at home listening to her grandfather's breathing? But what
could she do? Where could she go? She could find no answer, and as
she was returning home she doubted whether she would be happy here,
and thought that driving from the station was far more interesting
than living here.

Dr. Neshtchapov drove over from the works. He was a doctor, but
three years previously he had taken a share in the works, and had
become one of the partners; and now he no longer looked upon medicine
as his chief vocation, though he still practised. In appearance he
was a pale, dark man in a white waistcoat, with a good figure; but
to guess what there was in his heart and his brain was difficult.
He kissed Auntie Dasha's hand on greeting her, and was continually
leaping up to set a chair or give his seat to some one. He was very
silent and grave all the while, and, when he did speak, it was for
some reason impossible to hear and understand his first sentence,
though he spoke correctly and not in a low voice.

"You play the piano?" he asked Vera, and immediately leapt up, as
she had dropped her handkerchief.

He stayed from midday to midnight without speaking, and Vera found
him very unattractive. She thought that a white waistcoat in the
country was bad form, and his elaborate politeness, his manners,
and his pale, serious face with dark eyebrows, were mawkish; and
it seemed to her that he was perpetually silent, probably because
he was stupid. When he had gone her aunt said enthusiastically:

"Well? Isn't he charming?"

II

Auntie Dasha looked after the estate. Tightly laced, with jingling
bracelets on her wrists, she went into the kitchen, the granary,
the cattle-yard, tripping along with tiny steps, wriggling her
spine; and whenever she talked to the steward or to the peasants,
she used, for some reason, to put on a pince-nez. Vera's grandfather
always sat in the same place, playing patience or dozing. He ate a
very great deal at dinner and supper; they gave him the dinner
cooked to-day and what was left from yesterday, and cold pie left
from Sunday, and salt meat from the servants' dinner, and he ate
it all greedily. And every dinner left on Vera such an impression,
that when she saw afterwards a flock of sheep driven by, or flour
being brought from the mill, she thought, "Grandfather will eat
that." For the most part he was silent, absorbed in eating or in
patience; but it sometimes happened at dinner that at the sight of
Vera he would be touched and say tenderly:

"My only grandchild! Verotchka!"

And tears would glisten in his eyes. Or his face would turn suddenly
crimson, his neck would swell, he would look with fury at the
servants, and ask, tapping with his stick:

"Why haven't you brought the horse-radish?"

In winter he led a perfectly inactive existence; in summer he
sometimes drove out into the fields to look at the oats and the
hay; and when he came back he would flourish his stick and declare
that everything was neglected now that he was not there to look
after it.

"Your grandfather is out of humour," Auntie Dasha would whisper.
"But it's nothing now to what it used to be in the old days:
'Twenty-five strokes! The birch!'"

Her aunt complained that every one had grown lazy, that no one did
anything, and that the estate yielded no profit. Indeed, there was
no systematic farming; they ploughed and sowed a little simply from
habit, and in reality did nothing and lived in idleness. Meanwhile
there was a running to and fro, reckoning and worrying all day long;
the bustle in the house began at five o'clock in the morning; there
were continual sounds of "Bring it," "Fetch it," "Make haste," and
by the evening the servants were utterly exhausted. Auntie Dasha
changed her cooks and her housemaids every week; sometimes she
discharged them for immorality; sometimes they went of their own
accord, complaining that they were worked to death. None of the
village people would come to the house as servants; Auntie Dasha
had to hire them from a distance. There was only one girl from the
village living in the house, Alyona, and she stayed because her
whole family--old people and children--were living upon her
wages. This Alyona, a pale, rather stupid little thing, spent the
whole day turning out the rooms, waiting at table, heating the
stoves, sewing, washing; but it always seemed as though she were
only pottering about, treading heavily with her boots, and were
nothing but a hindrance in the house. In her terror that she might
be dismissed and sent home, she often dropped and broke the crockery,
and they stopped the value of it out of her wages, and then her
mother and grandmother would come and bow down at Auntie Dasha's
feet.

Once a week or sometimes oftener visitors would arrive. Her aunt
would come to Vera and say:

"You should sit a little with the visitors, or else they'll think
that you are stuck up."

Vera would go in to the visitors and play _vint_ with them for hours
together, or play the piano for the visitors to dance; her aunt,
in high spirits and breathless from dancing, would come up and
whisper to her:

"Be nice to Marya Nikiforovna."

On the sixth of December, St. Nikolay's Day, a large party of about
thirty arrived all at once; they played _vint_ until late at night,
and many of them stayed the night. In the morning they sat down to
cards again, then they had dinner, and when Vera went to her room
after dinner to rest from conversation and tobacco smoke, there
were visitors there too, and she almost wept in despair. And when
they began to get ready to go in the evening, she was so pleased
they were going at last, that she said:

"Do stay a little longer."

She felt exhausted by the visitors and constrained by their presence;
yet every day, as soon as it began to grow dark, something drew her
out of the house, and she went out to pay visits either at the works
or at some neighbours', and then there were cards, dancing, forfeits,
suppers. . . .The young people in the works or in the mines sometimes
sang Little Russian songs, and sang them very well. It made one sad
to hear them sing. Or they all gathered together in one room and
talked in the dusk of the mines, of the treasures that had once
been buried in the steppes, of Saur's Grave. . . . Later on, as
they talked, a shout of "Help!" sometimes reached them. It was a
drunken man going home, or some one was being robbed by the pit
near by. Or the wind howled in the chimneys, the shutters banged;
then, soon afterwards, they would hear the uneasy church bell, as
the snow-storm began.

At all the evening parties, picnics, and dinners, Auntie Dasha was
invariably the most interesting woman and the doctor the most
interesting man. There was very little reading either at the works
or at the country-houses; they played only marches and polkas; and
the young people always argued hotly about things they did not
understand, and the effect was crude. The discussions were loud and
heated, but, strange to say, Vera had nowhere else met people so
indifferent and careless as these. They seemed to have no fatherland,
no religion, no public interests. When they talked of literature
or debated some abstract question, it could be seen from Dr.
Neshtchapov's face that the question had no interest for him whatever,
and that for long, long years he had read nothing and cared to read
nothing. Serious and expressionless, like a badly painted portrait,
for ever in his white waistcoat, he was silent and incomprehensible
as before; but the ladies, young and old, thought him interesting
and were enthusiastic over his manners. They envied Vera, who
appeared to attract him very much. And Vera always came away from
the visits with a feeling of vexation, vowing inwardly to remain
at home; but the day passed, the evening came, and she hurried off
to the works again, and it was like that almost all the winter.

She ordered books and magazines, and used to read them in her room.
And she read at night, lying in bed. When the clock in the corridor
struck two or three, and her temples were beginning to ache from
reading, she sat up in bed and thought, "What am I to do? Where am
I to go?" Accursed, importunate question, to which there were a
number of ready-made answers, and in reality no answer at all.

Oh, how noble, how holy, how picturesque it must be to serve the
people, to alleviate their sufferings, to enlighten them! But she,
Vera, did not know the people. And how could she go to them? They
were strange and uninteresting to her; she could not endure the
stuffy smell of the huts, the pot-house oaths, the unwashed children,
the women's talk of illnesses. To walk over the snow-drifts, to
feel cold, then to sit in a stifling hut, to teach children she
disliked--no, she would rather die! And to teach the peasants'
children while Auntie Dasha made money out of the pot-houses and
fined the peasants--it was too great a farce! What a lot of talk
there was of schools, of village libraries, of universal education;
but if all these engineers, these mine-owners and ladies of her
acquaintance, had not been hypocrites, and really had believed that
enlightenment was necessary, they would not have paid the schoolmasters
fifteen roubles a month as they did now, and would not have let
them go hungry. And the schools and the talk about ignorance--it
was all only to stifle the voice of conscience because they were
ashamed to own fifteen or thirty thousand acres and to be indifferent
to the peasants' lot. Here the ladies said about Dr. Neshtchapov
that he was a kind man and had built a school at the works. Yes,
he had built a school out of the old bricks at the works for some
eight hundred roubles, and they sang the prayer for "long life" to
him when the building was opened, but there was no chance of his
giving up his shares, and it certainly never entered his head that
the peasants were human beings like himself, and that they, too,
needed university teaching, and not merely lessons in these wretched
schools.

And Vera felt full of anger against herself and every one else. She
took up a book again and tried to read it, but soon afterwards sat
down and thought again. To become a doctor? But to do that one must
pass an examination in Latin; besides, she had an invincible
repugnance to corpses and disease. It would be nice to become a
mechanic, a judge, a commander of a steamer, a scientist; to do
something into which she could put all her powers, physical and
spiritual, and to be tired out and sleep soundly at night; to give
up her life to something that would make her an interesting person,
able to attract interesting people, to love, to have a real family
of her own. . . . But what was she to do? How was she to begin?

One Sunday in Lent her aunt came into her room early in the morning
to fetch her umbrella. Vera was sitting up in bed clasping her head
in her hands, thinking.

"You ought to go to church, darling," said her aunt, "or people
will think you are not a believer."

Vera made no answer.

"I see you are dull, poor child," said Auntie Dasha, sinking on her
knees by the bedside; she adored Vera. "Tell me the truth, are you
bored?"

"Dreadfully."

"My beauty, my queen, I am your willing slave, I wish you nothing
but good and happiness. . . . Tell me, why don't you want to marry
Nestchapov? What more do you want, my child? You must forgive me,
darling; you can't pick and choose like this, we are not princes
. . . . Time is passing, you are not seventeen. . . . And I don't
understand it! He loves you, idolises you!"

"Oh, mercy!" said Vera with vexation. "How can I tell? He sits dumb
and never says a word."

"He's shy, darling. . . . He's afraid you'll refuse him!"

And when her aunt had gone away, Vera remained standing in the
middle of her room uncertain whether to dress or to go back to bed.
The bed was hateful; if one looked out of the window there were the
bare trees, the grey snow, the hateful jackdaws, the pigs that her
grandfather would eat. . . .

"Yes, after all, perhaps I'd better get married!" she thought.

III

For two days Auntie Dasha went about with a tear-stained and heavily
powdered face, and at dinner she kept sighing and looking towards
the ikon. And it was impossible to make out what was the matter
with her. But at last she made up her mind, went in to Vera, and
said in a casual way:

"The fact is, child, we have to pay interest on the bank loan, and
the tenant hasn't paid his rent. Will you let me pay it out of the
fifteen thousand your papa left you?"

All day afterwards Auntie Dasha spent in making cherry jam in the
garden. Alyona, with her cheeks flushed with the heat, ran to and
from the garden to the house and back again to the cellar.

When Auntie Dasha was making jam with a very serious face as though
she were performing a religious rite, and her short sleeves displayed
her strong, little, despotic hands and arms, and when the servants
ran about incessantly, bustling about the jam which they would never
taste, there was always a feeling of martyrdom in the air. . . .

The garden smelt of hot cherries. The sun had set, the charcoal
stove had been carried away, but the pleasant, sweetish smell still
lingered in the air. Vera sat on a bench in the garden and watched
a new labourer, a young soldier, not of the neighbourhood, who was,
by her express orders, making new paths. He was cutting the turf
with a spade and heaping it up on a barrow.

"Where were you serving?" Vera asked him.

"At Berdyansk."

"And where are you going now? Home?"

"No," answered the labourer. "I have no home."

"But where were you born and brought up?"

"In the province of Oryol. Till I went into the army I lived with
my mother, in my step-father's house; my mother was the head of the
house, and people looked up to her, and while she lived I was cared
for. But while I was in the army I got a letter telling me my mother
was dead. . . . And now I don't seem to care to go home. It's not
my own father, so it's not like my own home."

"Then your father is dead?"

"I don't know. I am illegitimate."

At that moment Auntie Dasha appeared at the window and said:

"_Il ne faut pas parler aux gens . . . ._ Go into the kitchen, my
good man. You can tell your story there," she said to the soldier.

And then came as yesterday and every day supper, reading, a sleepless
night, and endless thinking about the same thing. At three o'clock
the sun rose; Alyona was already busy in the corridor, and Vera was
not asleep yet and was trying to read. She heard the creak of the
barrow: it was the new labourer at work in the garden. . . . Vera
sat at the open window with a book, dozed, and watched the soldier
making the paths for her, and that interested her. The paths were
as even and level as a leather strap, and it was pleasant to imagine
what they would be like when they were strewn with yellow sand.

She could see her aunt come out of the house soon after five o'clock,
in a pink wrapper and curl-papers. She stood on the steps for three
minutes without speaking, and then said to the soldier:

"Take your passport and go in peace. I can't have any one illegitimate
in my house."

An oppressive, angry feeling sank like a stone on Vera's heart. She
was indignant with her aunt, she hated her; she was so sick of her
aunt that her heart was full of misery and loathing. But what was
she to do? To stop her mouth? To be rude to her? But what would be
the use? Suppose she struggled with her, got rid of her, made her
harmless, prevented her grandfather from flourishing his stick--
what would be the use of it? It would be like killing one mouse or
one snake in the boundless steppe. The vast expanse, the long
winters, the monotony and dreariness of life, instil a sense of
helplessness; the position seems hopeless, and one wants to do
nothing--everything is useless.

Alyona came in, and bowing low to Vera, began carrying out the
arm-chairs to beat the dust out of them.

"You have chosen a time to clean up," said Vera with annoyance. "Go
away."

Alyona was overwhelmed, and in her terror could not understand what
was wanted of her. She began hurriedly tidying up the dressing-table.

"Go out of the room, I tell you," Vera shouted, turning cold; she
had never had such an oppressive feeling before. "Go away!"

Alyona uttered a sort of moan, like a bird, and dropped Vera's gold
watch on the carpet.

"Go away!" Vera shrieked in a voice not her own, leaping up and
trembling all over. "Send her away; she worries me to death!" she
went on, walking rapidly after Alyona down the passage, stamping
her feet. "Go away! Birch her! Beat her!" Then suddenly she came
to herself, and just as she was, unwashed, uncombed, in her
dressing-gown and slippers, she rushed out of the house. She ran
to the familiar ravine and hid herself there among the sloe-trees,
so that she might see no one and be seen by no one. Lying there
motionless on the grass, she did not weep, she was not horror-stricken,
but gazing at the sky open-eyed, she reflected coldly and clearly
that something had happened which she could never forget and for
which she could never forgive herself all her life.

"No, I can't go on like this," she thought. "It's time to take
myself in hand, or there'll be no end to it. . . . I can't go on
like this. . . ."

At midday Dr. Neshtchapov drove by the ravine on his way to the
house. She saw him and made up her mind that she would begin a new
life, and that she would make herself begin it, and this decision
calmed her. And following with her eyes the doctor's well-built
figure, she said, as though trying to soften the crudity of her
decision:

"He's a nice man. . . . We shall get through life somehow."

She returned home. While she was dressing, Auntie Dasha came into
the room, and said:

"Alyona upset you, darling; I've sent her home to the village. Her
mother's given her a good beating and has come here, crying."

"Auntie," said Vera quickly, "I'm going to marry Dr. Neshtchapov.
Only talk to him yourself . . . I can't."

And again she went out into the fields. And wandering aimlessly
about, she made up her mind that when she was married she would
look after the house, doctor the peasants, teach in the school,
that she would do all the things that other women of her circle
did. And this perpetual dissatisfaction with herself and every one
else, this series of crude mistakes which stand up like a mountain
before one whenever one looks back upon one's past, she would accept
as her real life to which she was fated, and she would expect nothing
better. . . . Of course there was nothing better! Beautiful nature,
dreams, music, told one story, but reality another. Evidently truth
and happiness existed somewhere outside real life. . . . One must
give up one's own life and merge oneself into this luxuriant steppe,
boundless and indifferent as eternity, with its flowers, its ancient
barrows, and its distant horizon, and then it would be well with
one. . . .

A month later Vera was living at the works.


EXPENSIVE LESSONS

FOR a cultivated man to be ignorant of foreign languages is a great
inconvenience. Vorotov became acutely conscious of it when, after
taking his degree, he began upon a piece of research work.

"It's awful," he said, breathing hard (although he was only twenty-six
he was fat, heavy, and suffered from shortness of breath).

"It's awful! Without languages I'm like a bird without wings. I
might just as well give up the work."

And he made up his mind at all costs to overcome his innate laziness,
and to learn French and German; and began to look out for a teacher.

One winter noon, as Vorotov was sitting in his study at work, the
servant told him that a young lady was inquiring for him.

"Ask her in," said Vorotov.

And a young lady elaborately dressed in the last fashion walked in.
She introduced herself as a teacher of French, Alice Osipovna
Enquete, and told Vorotov that she had been sent to him by one of
his friends.

"Delighted! Please sit down," said Vorotov, breathing hard and
putting his hand over the collar of his nightshirt (to breathe more
freely he always wore a nightshirt at work instead of a stiff linen
one with collar). "It was Pyotr Sergeitch sent you? Yes, yes . . .
I asked him about it. Delighted!"

As he talked to Mdlle. Enquete he looked at her shyly and with
curiosity. She was a genuine Frenchwoman, very elegant and still
quite young. Judging from her pale, languid face, her short curly
hair, and her unnaturally slim waist, she might have been eighteen;
but looking at her broad, well-developed shoulders, the elegant
lines of her back and her severe eyes, Vorotov thought that she was
not less than three-and-twenty and might be twenty-five; but then
again he began to think she was not more than eighteen. Her face
looked as cold and business-like as the face of a person who has
come to speak about money. She did not once smile or frown, and
only once a look of perplexity flitted over her face when she learnt
that she was not required to teach children, but a stout grown-up
man.

"So, Alice Osipovna," said Vorotov, "we'll have a lesson every
evening from seven to eight. As regards your terms--a rouble a
lesson--I've nothing to say against that. By all means let it be
a rouble. . . ."

And he asked her if she would not have some tea or coffee, whether
it was a fine day, and with a good-natured smile, stroking the baize
of the table, he inquired in a friendly voice who she was, where
she had studied, and what she lived on.

With a cold, business-like expression, Alice Osipovna answered that
she had completed her studies at a private school and had the diploma
of a private teacher, that her father had died lately of scarlet
fever, that her mother was alive and made artificial flowers; that
she, Mdlle. Enquete, taught in a private school till dinnertime,
and after dinner was busy till evening giving lessons in different
good families.

She went away leaving behind her the faint fragrance of a woman's
clothes. For a long time afterwards Vorotov could not settle to
work, but, sitting at the table stroking its green baize surface,
he meditated.

"It's very pleasant to see a girl working to earn her own living,"
he thought. "On the other hand, it's very unpleasant to think that
poverty should not spare such elegant and pretty girls as Alice
Osipovna, and that she, too, should have to struggle for existence.
It's a sad thing!"

Having never seen virtuous Frenchwomen before, he reflected also
that this elegantly dressed young lady with her well-developed
shoulders and exaggeratedly small waist in all probability followed
another calling as well as giving French lessons.

The next evening when the clock pointed to five minutes to seven,
Mdlle. Enquete appeared, rosy from the frost. She opened Margot,
which she had brought with her, and without introduction began:

"French grammar has twenty-six letters. The first letter is called
_A_, the second _B_ . . ."

"Excuse me," Vorotov interrupted, smiling. "I must warn you,
mademoiselle, that you must change your method a little in my case.
You see, I know Russian, Greek, and Latin well. . . . I've studied
comparative philology, and I think we might omit Margot and pass
straight to reading some author."

And he explained to the French girl how grown-up people learn
languages.

"A friend of mine," he said, "wanting to learn modern languages,
laid before him the French, German, and Latin gospels, and read
them side by side, carefully analysing each word, and would you
believe it, he attained his object in less than a year. Let us do
the same. We'll take some author and read him."

The French girl looked at him in perplexity. Evidently the suggestion
seemed to her very naive and ridiculous. If this strange proposal
had been made to her by a child, she would certainly have been angry
and have scolded it, but as he was a grown-up man and very stout
and she could not scold him, she only shrugged her shoulders hardly
perceptibly and said:

"As you please."

Vorotov rummaged in his bookcase and picked out a dog's-eared French
book.

"Will this do?"

"It's all the same," she said.

"In that case let us begin, and good luck to it! Let's begin with
the title . . . 'Memoires.'"

"Reminiscences," Mdlle. Enquete translated.

With a good-natured smile, breathing hard, he spent a quarter of
an hour over the word "Memoires," and as much over the word _de_,
and this wearied the young lady. She answered his questions languidly,
grew confused, and evidently did not understand her pupil well, and
did not attempt to understand him. Vorotov asked her questions, and
at the same time kept looking at her fair hair and thinking:

"Her hair isn't naturally curly; she curls it. It's a strange thing!
She works from morning to night, and yet she has time to curl her
hair."

At eight o'clock precisely she got up, and saying coldly and dryly,
"Au revoir, monsieur," walked out of the study, leaving behind her
the same tender, delicate, disturbing fragrance. For a long time
again her pupil did nothing; he sat at the table meditating.

During the days that followed he became convinced that his teacher
was a charming, conscientious, and precise young lady, but that she
was very badly educated, and incapable of teaching grown-up people,
and he made up his mind not to waste his time, to get rid of her,
and to engage another teacher. When she came the seventh time he
took out of his pocket an envelope with seven roubles in it, and
holding it in his hand, became very confused and began:

"Excuse me, Alice Osipovna, but I ought to tell you . . . I'm under
painful necessity . . ."

Seeing the envelope, the French girl guessed what was meant, and
for the first time during their lessons her face quivered and her
cold, business-like expression vanished. She coloured a little, and
dropping her eyes, began nervously fingering her slender gold chain.
And Vorotov, seeing her perturbation, realised how much a rouble
meant to her, and how bitter it would be to her to lose what she
was earning.

"I ought to tell you," he muttered, growing more and more confused,
and quavering inwardly; he hurriedly stuffed the envelope into his
pocket and went on: "Excuse me, I . . . I must leave you for ten
minutes."

And trying to appear as though he had not in the least meant to get
rid of her, but only to ask her permission to leave her for a short
time, he went into the next room and sat there for ten minutes. And
then he returned more embarrassed than ever: it struck him that she
might have interpreted his brief absence in some way of her own,
and he felt awkward.

The lessons began again. Yorotov felt no interest in them. Realising
that he would gain nothing from the lessons, he gave the French
girl liberty to do as she liked, asking her nothing and not
interrupting her. She translated away as she pleased ten pages
during a lesson, and he did not listen, breathed hard, and having
nothing better to do, gazed at her curly head, or her soft white
hands or her neck and sniffed the fragrance of her clothes. He
caught himself thinking very unsuitable thoughts, and felt ashamed,
or he was moved to tenderness, and then he felt vexed and wounded
that she was so cold and business-like with him, and treated him
as a pupil, never smiling and seeming afraid that he might accidentally
touch her. He kept wondering how to inspire her with confidence and
get to know her better, and to help her, to make her understand how
badly she taught, poor thing.

One day Mdlle. Enquete came to the lesson in a smart pink dress,
slightly _decollete_, and surrounded by such a fragrance that she
seemed to be wrapped in a cloud, and, if one blew upon her, ready
to fly away into the air or melt away like smoke. She apologised
and said she could stay only half an hour for the lesson, as she
was going straight from the lesson to a dance.

He looked at her throat and the back of her bare neck, and thought
he understood why Frenchwomen had the reputation of frivolous
creatures easily seduced; he was carried away by this cloud of
fragrance, beauty, and bare flesh, while she, unconscious of his
thoughts and probably not in the least interested in them, rapidly
turned over the pages and translated at full steam:

"'He was walking the street and meeting a gentleman his friend and
saying, "Where are you striving to seeing your face so pale it makes
me sad."'"

The "Memoires" had long been finished, and now Alice was translating
some other book. One day she came an hour too early for the lesson,
apologizing and saying that she wanted to leave at seven and go to
the Little Theatre. Seeing her out after the lesson, Vorotov dressed
and went to the theatre himself. He went, and fancied that he was
going simply for change and amusement, and that he was not thinking
about Alice at all. He could not admit that a serious man, preparing
for a learned career, lethargic in his habits, could fling up his
work and go to the theatre simply to meet there a girl he knew very
little, who was unintelligent and utterly unintellectual.

Yet for some reason his heart was beating during the intervals, and
without realizing what he was doing, he raced about the corridors
and foyer like a boy impatiently looking for some one, and he was
disappointed when the interval was over. And when he saw the familiar
pink dress and the handsome shoulders under the tulle, his heart
quivered as though with a foretaste of happiness; he smiled joyfully,
and for the first time in his life experienced the sensation of
jealousy.

Alice was walking with two unattractive-looking students and an
officer. She was laughing, talking loudly, and obviously flirting.
Vorotov had never seen her like that. She was evidently happy,
contented, warm, sincere. What for? Why? Perhaps because these men
were her friends and belonged to her own circle. And Vorotov felt
there was a terrible gulf between himself and that circle. He bowed
to his teacher, but she gave him a chilly nod and walked quickly
by; she evidently did not care for her friends to know that she had
pupils, and that she had to give lessons to earn money.

After the meeting at the theatre Vorotov realised that he was in
love. . . . During the subsequent lessons he feasted his eyes on
his elegant teacher, and without struggling with himself, gave full
rein to his imaginations, pure and impure. Mdlle. Enquete's face
did not cease to be cold; precisely at eight o'clock every evening
she said coldly, "Au revoir, monsieur," and he felt she cared nothing
about him, and never would care anything about him, and that his
position was hopeless.

Sometimes in the middle of a lesson he would begin dreaming, hoping,
making plans. He inwardly composed declarations of love, remembered
that Frenchwomen were frivolous and easily won, but it was enough
for him to glance at the face of his teacher for his ideas to be
extinguished as a candle is blown out when you bring it into the
wind on the verandah. Once, overcome, forgetting himself as though
in delirium, he could not restrain himself, and barred her way as
she was going from the study into the entry after the lesson, and,
gasping for breath and stammering, began to declare his love:

"You are dear to me! I . . . I love you! Allow me to speak."

And Alice turned pale--probably from dismay, reflecting that after
this declaration she could not come here again and get a rouble a
lesson. With a frightened look in her eyes she said in a loud
whisper:

"Ach, you mustn't! Don't speak, I entreat you! You mustn't!"

And Vorotov did not sleep all night afterwards; he was tortured by
shame; he blamed himself and thought intensely. It seemed to him
that he had insulted the girl by his declaration, that she would
not come to him again.

He resolved to find out her address from the address bureau in the
morning, and to write her a letter of apology. But Alice came without
a letter. For the first minute she felt uncomfortable, then she
opened a book and began briskly and rapidly translating as usual:

"'Oh, young gentleman, don't tear those flowers in my garden which
I want to be giving to my ill daughter. . . .'"

She still comes to this day. Four books have already been translated,
but Vorotov knows no French but the word "Memoires," and when he
is asked about his literary researches, he waves his hand, and
without answering, turns the conversation to the weather.


THE PRINCESS

A CARRIAGE with four fine sleek horses drove in at the big so-called
Red Gate of the N--- Monastery. While it was still at a distance,
the priests and monks who were standing in a group round the part
of the hostel allotted to the gentry, recognised by the coachman
and horses that the lady in the carriage was Princess Vera Gavrilovna,
whom they knew very well.

An old man in livery jumped off the box and helped the princess to
get out of the carriage. She raised her dark veil and moved in a
leisurely way up to the priests to receive their blessing; then she
nodded pleasantly to the rest of the monks and went into the hostel.

"Well, have you missed your princess?" she said to the monk who
brought in her things. "It's a whole month since I've been to see
you. But here I am; behold your princess. And where is the Father
Superior? My goodness, I am burning with impatience! Wonderful,
wonderful old man! You must be proud of having such a Superior."

When the Father Superior came in, the princess uttered a shriek of
delight, crossed her arms over her bosom, and went up to receive
his blessing.

"No, no, let me kiss your hand," she said, snatching it and eagerly
kissing it three times. "How glad I am to see you at last, holy
Father! I'm sure you've forgotten your princess, but my thoughts
have been in your dear monastery every moment. How delightful it
is here! This living for God far from the busy, giddy world has a
special charm of its own, holy Father, which I feel with my whole
soul although I cannot express it!"

The princess's cheeks glowed and tears came into her eyes. She
talked incessantly, fervently, while the Father Superior, a grave,
plain, shy old man of seventy, remained mute or uttered abruptly,
like a soldier on duty, phrases such as:

"Certainly, Your Excellency. . . . Quite so. I understand."

"Has Your Excellency come for a long stay?" he inquired.

"I shall stay the night here, and to-morrow I'm going on to Klavdia
Nikolaevna's--it's a long time since I've seen her--and the day
after to-morrow I'll come back to you and stay three or four days.
I want to rest my soul here among you, holy Father. . . ."

The princess liked being at the monastery at N---. For the last two
years it had been a favourite resort of hers; she used to go there
almost every month in the summer and stay two or three days, even
sometimes a week. The shy novices, the stillness, the low ceilings,
the smell of cypress, the modest fare, the cheap curtains on the
windows--all this touched her, softened her, and disposed her to
contemplation and good thoughts. It was enough for her to be half
an hour in the hostel for her to feel that she, too, was timid and
modest, and that she, too, smelt of cypress-wood. The past retreated
into the background, lost its significance, and the princess began
to imagine that in spite of her twenty-nine years she was very much
like the old Father Superior, and that, like him, she was created
not for wealth, not for earthly grandeur and love, but for a peaceful
life secluded from the world, a life in twilight like the hostel.

It happens that a ray of light gleams in the dark cell of the
anchorite absorbed in prayer, or a bird alights on the window and
sings its song; the stern anchorite will smile in spite of himself,
and a gentle, sinless joy will pierce through the load of grief
over his sins, like water flowing from under a stone. The princess
fancied she brought from the outside world just such comfort as the
ray of light or the bird. Her gay, friendly smile, her gentle eyes,
her voice, her jests, her whole personality in fact, her little
graceful figure always dressed in simple black, must arouse in
simple, austere people a feeling of tenderness and joy. Every one,
looking at her, must think: "God has sent us an angel. . . ." And
feeling that no one could help thinking this, she smiled still more
cordially, and tried to look like a bird.

After drinking tea and resting, she went for a walk. The sun was
already setting. From the monastery garden came a moist fragrance
of freshly watered mignonette, and from the church floated the soft
singing of men's voices, which seemed very pleasant and mournful
in the distance. It was the evening service. In the dark windows
where the little lamps glowed gently, in the shadows, in the figure
of the old monk sitting at the church door with a collecting-box,
there was such unruffled peace that the princess felt moved to
tears.

Outside the gate, in the walk between the wall and the birch-trees
where there were benches, it was quite evening. The air grew rapidly
darker and darker. The princess went along the walk, sat on a seat,
and sank into thought.

She thought how good it would be to settle down for her whole life
in this monastery where life was as still and unruffled as a summer
evening; how good it would be to forget the ungrateful, dissipated
prince; to forget her immense estates, the creditors who worried
her every day, her misfortunes, her maid Dasha, who had looked at
her impertinently that morning. It would be nice to sit here on the
bench all her life and watch through the trunks of the birch-trees
the evening mist gathering in wreaths in the valley below; the rooks
flying home in a black cloud like a veil far, far away above the
forest; two novices, one astride a piebald horse, another on foot
driving out the horses for the night and rejoicing in their freedom,
playing pranks like little children; their youthful voices rang out
musically in the still air, and she could distinguish every word.
It is nice to sit and listen to the silence: at one moment the wind
blows and stirs the tops of the birch-trees, then a frog rustles
in last year's leaves, then the clock on the belfry strikes the
quarter. . . . One might sit without moving, listen and think, and
think. . . .

An old woman passed by with a wallet on her back. The princess
thought that it would be nice to stop the old woman and to say
something friendly and cordial to her, to help her. . . . But the
old woman turned the corner without once looking round.

Not long afterwards a tall man with a grey beard and a straw hat
came along the walk. When he came up to the princess, he took off
his hat and bowed. From the bald patch on his head and his sharp,
hooked nose the princess recognised him as the doctor, Mihail
Ivanovitch, who had been in her service at Dubovki. She remembered
that some one had told her that his wife had died the year before,
and she wanted to sympathise with him, to console him.

"Doctor, I expect you don't recognise me?" she said with an affable
smile.

"Yes, Princess, I recognised you," said the doctor, taking off his
hat again.

"Oh, thank you; I was afraid that you, too, had forgotten your
princess. People only remember their enemies, but they forget their
friends. Have you, too, come to pray?"

"I am the doctor here, and I have to spend the night at the monastery
every Saturday."

"Well, how are you?" said the princess, sighing. "I hear that you
have lost your wife. What a calamity!"

"Yes, Princess, for me it is a great calamity."

"There's nothing for it! We must bear our troubles with resignation.
Not one hair of a man's head is lost without the Divine Will."

"Yes, Princess."

To the princess's friendly, gentle smile and her sighs the doctor
responded coldly and dryly: "Yes, Princess." And the expression of
his face was cold and dry.

"What else can I say to him?" she wondered.

"How long it is since we met!" she said. "Five years! How much water
has flowed under the bridge, how many changes in that time; it quite
frightens one to think of it! You know, I am married. . . . I am
not a countess now, but a princess. And by now I am separated from
my husband too."

"Yes, I heard so."

"God has sent me many trials. No doubt you have heard, too, that I
am almost ruined. My Dubovki, Sofyino, and Kiryakovo have all been
sold for my unhappy husband's debts. And I have only Baranovo and
Mihaltsevo left. It's terrible to look back: how many changes and
misfortunes of all kinds, how many mistakes!"

"Yes, Princess, many mistakes."

The princess was a little disconcerted. She knew her mistakes; they
were all of such a private character that no one but she could think
or speak of them. She could not resist asking:

"What mistakes are you thinking about?"

"You referred to them, so you know them . . ." answered the doctor,
and he smiled. "Why talk about them!"

"No; tell me, doctor. I shall be very grateful to you. And please
don't stand on ceremony with me. I love to hear the truth."

"I am not your judge, Princess."

"Not my judge! What a tone you take! You must know something about
me. Tell me!"

"If you really wish it, very well. Only I regret to say I'm not
clever at talking, and people can't always understand me."

The doctor thought a moment and began:

"A lot of mistakes; but the most important of them, in my opinion,
was the general spirit that prevailed on all your estates. You see,
I don't know how to express myself. I mean chiefly the lack of love,
the aversion for people that was felt in absolutely everything.
Your whole system of life was built upon that aversion. Aversion
for the human voice, for faces, for heads, steps . . . in fact, for
everything that makes up a human being. At all the doors and on the
stairs there stand sleek, rude, and lazy grooms in livery to prevent
badly dressed persons from entering the house; in the hall there
are chairs with high backs so that the footmen waiting there, during
balls and receptions, may not soil the walls with their heads; in
every room there are thick carpets that no human step may be heard;
every one who comes in is infallibly warned to speak as softly and
as little as possible, and to say nothing that might have a
disagreeable effect on the nerves or the imagination. And in your
room you don't shake hands with any one or ask him to sit down--
just as you didn't shake hands with me or ask me to sit down. . . ."

"By all means, if you like," said the princess, smiling and holding
out her hand. "Really, to be cross about such trifles. . . ."

"But I am not cross," laughed the doctor, but at once he flushed,
took off his hat, and waving it about, began hotly: "To be candid,
I've long wanted an opportunity to tell you all I think. . . . That
is, I want to tell you that you look upon the mass of mankind from
the Napoleonic standpoint as food for the cannon. But Napoleon had
at least some idea; you have nothing except aversion."

"I have an aversion for people?" smiled the princess, shrugging her
shoulders in astonishment. "I have!"

"Yes, you! You want facts? By all means. In Mihaltsevo three former
cooks of yours, who have gone blind in your kitchens from the heat
of the stove, are living upon charity. All the health and strength
and good looks that is found on your hundreds of thousands of acres
is taken by you and your parasites for your grooms, your footmen,
and your coachmen. All these two-legged cattle are trained to be
flunkeys, overeat themselves, grow coarse, lose the 'image and
likeness,' in fact. . . . Young doctors, agricultural experts,
teachers, intellectual workers generally--think of it!--are
torn away from their honest work and forced for a crust of bread
to take part in all sorts of mummeries which make every decent man
feel ashamed! Some young men cannot be in your service for three
years without becoming hypocrites, toadies, sneaks. . . . Is that
a good thing? Your Polish superintendents, those abject spies, all
those Kazimers and Kaetans, go hunting about on your hundreds of
thousands of acres from morning to night, and to please you try to
get three skins off one ox. Excuse me, I speak disconnectedly, but
that doesn't matter. You don't look upon the simple people as human
beings. And even the princes, counts, and bishops who used to come
and see you, you looked upon simply as decorative figures, not as
living beings. But the worst of all, the thing that most revolts
me, is having a fortune of over a million and doing nothing for
other people, nothing!"

The princess sat amazed, aghast, offended, not knowing what to say
or how to behave. She had never before been spoken to in such a
tone. The doctor's unpleasant, angry voice and his clumsy, faltering
phrases made a harsh clattering noise in her ears and her head.
Then she began to feel as though the gesticulating doctor was hitting
her on the head with his hat.

"It's not true!" she articulated softly, in an imploring voice.
"I've done a great deal of good for other people; you know it
yourself!"

"Nonsense!" cried the doctor. "Can you possibly go on thinking of
your philanthropic work as something genuine and useful, and not a
mere mummery? It was a farce from beginning to end; it was playing
at loving your neighbour, the most open farce which even children
and stupid peasant women saw through! Take for instance your--
what was it called?--house for homeless old women without relations,
of which you made me something like a head doctor, and of which you
were the patroness. Mercy on us! What a charming institution it
was! A house was built with parquet floors and a weathercock on the
roof; a dozen old women were collected from the villages and made
to sleep under blankets and sheets of Dutch linen, and given toffee
to eat."

The doctor gave a malignant chuckle into his hat, and went on
speaking rapidly and stammering:

"It was a farce! The attendants kept the sheets and the blankets
under lock and key, for fear the old women should soil them--'Let
the old devil's pepper-pots sleep on the floor.' The old women did
not dare to sit down on the beds, to put on their jackets, to walk
over the polished floors. Everything was kept for show and hidden
away from the old women as though they were thieves, and the old
women were clothed and fed on the sly by other people's charity,
and prayed to God night and day to be released from their prison
and from the canting exhortations of the sleek rascals to whose
care you committed them. And what did the managers do? It was simply
charming! About twice a week there would be thirty-five thousand
messages to say that the princess--that is, you--were coming
to the home next day. That meant that next day I had to abandon my
patients, dress up and be on parade. Very good; I arrive. The old
women, in everything clean and new, are already drawn up in a row,
waiting. Near them struts the old garrison rat--the superintendent
with his mawkish, sneaking smile. The old women yawn and exchange
glances, but are afraid to complain. We wait. The junior steward
gallops up. Half an hour later the senior steward; then the
superintendent of the accounts' office, then another, and then
another of them . . . they keep arriving endlessly. They all have
mysterious, solemn faces. We wait and wait, shift from one leg to
another, look at the clock--all this in monumental silence because
we all hate each other like poison. One hour passes, then a second,
and then at last the carriage is seen in the distance, and . . .
and . . ."

The doctor went off into a shrill laugh and brought out in a shrill
voice:

"You get out of the carriage, and the old hags, at the word of
command from the old garrison rat, begin chanting: 'The Glory of
our Lord in Zion the tongue of man cannot express. . .' A pretty
scene, wasn't it?"

The doctor went off into a bass chuckle, and waved his hand as
though to signify that he could not utter another word for laughing.
He laughed heavily, harshly, with clenched teeth, as ill-natured
people laugh; and from his voice, from his face, from his glittering,
rather insolent eyes it could be seen that he had a profound contempt
for the princess, for the home, and for the old women. There was
nothing amusing or laughable in all that he described so clumsily
and coarsely, but he laughed with satisfaction, even with delight.

"And the school?" he went on, panting from laughter. "Do you remember
how you wanted to teach peasant children yourself? You must have
taught them very well, for very soon the children all ran away, so
that they had to be thrashed and bribed to come and be taught. And
you remember how you wanted to feed with your own hands the infants
whose mothers were working in the fields. You went about the village
crying because the infants were not at your disposal, as the mothers
would take them to the fields with them. Then the village foreman
ordered the mothers by turns to leave their infants behind for your
entertainment. A strange thing! They all ran away from your benevolence
like mice from a cat! And why was it? It's very simple. Not because
our people are ignorant and ungrateful, as you always explained it
to yourself, but because in all your fads, if you'll excuse the
word, there wasn't a ha'p'orth of love and kindness! There was
nothing but the desire to amuse yourself with living puppets, nothing
else. . . . A person who does not feel the difference between a
human being and a lap-dog ought not to go in for philanthropy. I
assure you, there's a great difference between human beings and
lap-dogs!"

The princess's heart was beating dreadfully; there was a thudding
in her ears, and she still felt as though the doctor were beating
her on the head with his hat. The doctor talked quickly, excitedly,
and uncouthly, stammering and gesticulating unnecessarily. All she
grasped was that she was spoken to by a coarse, ill-bred, spiteful,
and ungrateful man; but what he wanted of her and what he was talking
about, she could not understand.

"Go away!" she said in a tearful voice, putting up her hands to
protect her head from the doctor's hat; "go away!"

"And how you treat your servants!" the doctor went on, indignantly.
"You treat them as the lowest scoundrels, and don't look upon them
as human beings. For example, allow me to ask, why did you dismiss
me? For ten years I worked for your father and afterwards for you,
honestly, without vacations or holidays. I gained the love of all
for more than seventy miles round, and suddenly one fine day I am
informed that I am no longer wanted. What for? I've no idea to this
day. I, a doctor of medicine, a gentleman by birth, a student of
the Moscow University, father of a family--am such a petty,
insignificant insect that you can kick me out without explaining
the reason! Why stand on ceremony with me! I heard afterwards that
my wife went without my knowledge three times to intercede with you
for me--you wouldn't receive her. I am told she cried in your
hall. And I shall never forgive her for it, never!"

The doctor paused and clenched his teeth, making an intense effort
to think of something more to say, very unpleasant and vindictive.
He thought of something, and his cold, frowning face suddenly
brightened.

"Take your attitude to this monastery!" he said with avidity. "You've
never spared any one, and the holier the place, the more chance of
its suffering from your loving-kindness and angelic sweetness. Why
do you come here? What do you want with the monks here, allow me
to ask you? What is Hecuba to you or you to Hecuba? It's another
farce, another amusement for you, another sacrilege against human
dignity, and nothing more. Why, you don't believe in the monks'
God; you've a God of your own in your heart, whom you've evolved
for yourself at spiritualist seances. You look with condescension
upon the ritual of the Church; you don't go to mass or vespers; you
sleep till midday. . . . Why do you come here? . . . You come with
a God of your own into a monastery you have nothing to do with, and
you imagine that the monks look upon it as a very great honour. To
be sure they do! You'd better ask, by the way, what your visits
cost the monastery. You were graciously pleased to arrive here this
evening, and a messenger from your estate arrived on horseback the
day before yesterday to warn them of your coming. They were the
whole day yesterday getting the rooms ready and expecting you. This
morning your advance-guard arrived--an insolent maid, who keeps
running across the courtyard, rustling her skirts, pestering them
with questions, giving orders. . . . I can't endure it! The monks
have been on the lookout all day, for if you were not met with due
ceremony, there would be trouble! You'd complain to the bishop!
'The monks don't like me, your holiness; I don't know what I've
done to displease them. It's true I'm a great sinner, but I'm so
unhappy!' Already one monastery has been in hot water over you. The
Father Superior is a busy, learned man; he hasn't a free moment,
and you keep sending for him to come to your rooms. Not a trace of
respect for age or for rank! If at least you were a bountiful giver
to the monastery, one wouldn't resent it so much, but all this time
the monks have not received a hundred roubles from you!"

Whenever people worried the princess, misunderstood her, or mortified
her, and when she did not know what to say or do, she usually began
to cry. And on this occasion, too, she ended by hiding her face in
her hands and crying aloud in a thin treble like a child. The doctor
suddenly stopped and looked at her. His face darkened and grew
stern.

"Forgive me, Princess," he said in a hollow voice. "I've given way
to a malicious feeling and forgotten myself. It was not right."

And coughing in an embarrassed way, he walked away quickly, without
remembering to put his hat on.

Stars were already twinkling in the sky. The moon must have been
rising on the further side of the monastery, for the sky was clear,
soft, and transparent. Bats were flitting noiselessly along the
white monastery wall.

The clock slowly struck three quarters, probably a quarter to nine.
The princess got up and walked slowly to the gate. She felt wounded
and was crying, and she felt that the trees and the stars and even
the bats were pitying her, and that the clock struck musically only
to express its sympathy with her. She cried and thought how nice
it would be to go into a monastery for the rest of her life. On
still summer evenings she would walk alone through the avenues,
insulted, injured, misunderstood by people, and only God and the
starry heavens would see the martyr's tears. The evening service
was still going on in the church. The princess stopped and listened
to the singing; how beautiful the singing sounded in the still
darkness! How sweet to weep and suffer to the sound of that singing!

Going into her rooms, she looked at her tear-stained face in the
glass and powdered it, then she sat down to supper. The monks knew
that she liked pickled sturgeon, little mushrooms, Malaga and plain
honey-cakes that left a taste of cypress in the mouth, and every
time she came they gave her all these dishes. As she ate the mushrooms
and drank the Malaga, the princess dreamed of how she would be
finally ruined and deserted--how all her stewards, bailiffs,
clerks, and maid-servants for whom she had done so much, would be
false to her, and begin to say rude things; how people all the world
over would set upon her, speak ill of her, jeer at her. She would
renounce her title, would renounce society and luxury, and would
go into a convent without one word of reproach to any one; she would
pray for her enemies--and then they would all understand her and
come to beg her forgiveness, but by that time it would be too
late. . . .

After supper she knelt down in the corner before the ikon and read
two chapters of the Gospel. Then her maid made her bed and she got
into it. Stretching herself under the white quilt, she heaved a
sweet, deep sigh, as one sighs after crying, closed her eyes, and
began to fall asleep.

In the morning she waked up and glanced at her watch. It was half-past
nine. On the carpet near the bed was a bright, narrow streak of
sunlight from a ray which came in at the window and dimly lighted
up the room. Flies were buzzing behind the black curtain at the
window. "It's early," thought the princess, and she closed her eyes.

Stretching and lying snug in her bed, she recalled her meeting
yesterday with the doctor and all the thoughts with which she had
gone to sleep the night before: she remembered she was unhappy.
Then she thought of her husband living in Petersburg, her stewards,
doctors, neighbours, the officials of her acquaintance . . . a long
procession of familiar masculine faces passed before her imagination.
She smiled and thought, if only these people could see into her
heart and understand her, they would all be at her feet.

At a quarter past eleven she called her maid.

"Help me to dress, Dasha," she said languidly. "But go first and
tell them to get out the horses. I must set off for Klavdia
Nikolaevna's."

Going out to get into the carriage, she blinked at the glaring
daylight and laughed with pleasure: it was a wonderfully fine day!
As she scanned from her half-closed eyes the monks who had gathered
round the steps to see her off, she nodded graciously and said:

"Good-bye, my friends! Till the day after tomorrow."

It was an agreeable surprise to her that the doctor was with the
monks by the steps. His face was pale and severe.

"Princess," he said with a guilty smile, taking off his hat, "I've
been waiting here a long time to see you. Forgive me, for God's
sake. . . . I was carried away yesterday by an evil, vindictive
feeling and I talked . . . nonsense. In short, I beg your pardon."

The princess smiled graciously, and held out her hand for him to
kiss. He kissed it, turning red.

Trying to look like a bird, the princess fluttered into the carriage
and nodded in all directions. There was a gay, warm, serene feeling
in her heart, and she felt herself that her smile was particularly
soft and friendly. As the carriage rolled towards the gates, and
afterwards along the dusty road past huts and gardens, past long
trains of waggons and strings of pilgrims on their way to the
monastery, she still screwed up her eyes and smiled softly. She was
thinking there was no higher bliss than to bring warmth, light, and
joy wherever one went, to forgive injuries, to smile graciously on
one's enemies. The peasants she passed bowed to her, the carriage
rustled softly, clouds of dust rose from under the wheels and floated
over the golden rye, and it seemed to the princess that her body
was swaying not on carriage cushions but on clouds, and that she
herself was like a light, transparent little cloud. . . .

"How happy I am!" she murmured, shutting her eyes. "How happy I
am!"


THE CHEMIST'S WIFE

THE little town of B----, consisting of two or three crooked streets,
was sound asleep. There was a complete stillness in the motionless
air. Nothing could be heard but far away, outside the town no doubt,
the barking of a dog in a thin, hoarse tenor. It was close upon
daybreak.

Everything had long been asleep. The only person not asleep was the
young wife of Tchernomordik, a qualified dispenser who kept a
chemist's shop at B----. She had gone to bed and got up again three
times, but could not sleep, she did not know why. She sat at the
open window in her nightdress and looked into the street. She felt
bored, depressed, vexed . . . so vexed that she felt quite inclined
to cry--again she did not know why. There seemed to be a lump in
her chest that kept rising into her throat. . . . A few paces behind
her Tchernomordik lay curled up close to the wall, snoring sweetly.
A greedy flea was stabbing the bridge of his nose, but he did not
feel it, and was positively smiling, for he was dreaming that every
one in the town had a cough, and was buying from him the King of
Denmark's cough-drops. He could not have been wakened now by pinpricks
or by cannon or by caresses.

The chemist's shop was almost at the extreme end of the town, so
that the chemist's wife could see far into the fields. She could
see the eastern horizon growing pale by degrees, then turning crimson
as though from a great fire. A big broad-faced moon peeped out
unexpectedly from behind bushes in the distance. It was red (as a
rule when the moon emerges from behind bushes it appears to be
blushing).

Suddenly in the stillness of the night there came the sounds of
footsteps and a jingle of spurs. She could hear voices.

"That must be the officers going home to the camp from the Police
Captain's," thought the chemist's wife.

Soon afterwards two figures wearing officers' white tunics came
into sight: one big and tall, the other thinner and shorter. . . .
They slouched along by the fence, dragging one leg after the other
and talking loudly together. As they passed the chemist's shop,
they walked more slowly than ever, and glanced up at the windows.

"It smells like a chemist's," said the thin one. "And so it is! Ah,
I remember. . . . I came here last week to buy some castor-oil.
There's a chemist here with a sour face and the jawbone of an ass!
Such a jawbone, my dear fellow! It must have been a jawbone like
that Samson killed the Philistines with."

"M'yes," said the big one in a bass voice. "The pharmacist is asleep.
And his wife is asleep too. She is a pretty woman, Obtyosov."

"I saw her. I liked her very much. . . . Tell me, doctor, can she
possibly love that jawbone of an ass? Can she?"

"No, most likely she does not love him," sighed the doctor, speaking
as though he were sorry for the chemist. "The little woman is asleep
behind the window, Obtyosov, what? Tossing with the heat, her little
mouth half open . . . and one little foot hanging out of bed. I bet
that fool the chemist doesn't realise what a lucky fellow he is. . . .
No doubt he sees no difference between a woman and a bottle of
carbolic!"

"I say, doctor," said the officer, stopping. "Let us go into the
shop and buy something. Perhaps we shall see her."

"What an idea--in the night!"

"What of it? They are obliged to serve one even at night. My dear
fellow, let us go in!"

"If you like. . . ."

The chemist's wife, hiding behind the curtain, heard a muffled ring.
Looking round at her husband, who was smiling and snoring sweetly
as before, she threw on her dress, slid her bare feet into her
slippers, and ran to the shop.

On the other side of the glass door she could see two shadows. The
chemist's wife turned up the lamp and hurried to the door to open
it, and now she felt neither vexed nor bored nor inclined to cry,
though her heart was thumping. The big doctor and the slender
Obtyosov walked in. Now she could get a view of them. The doctor
was corpulent and swarthy; he wore a beard and was slow in his
movements. At the slightest motion his tunic seemed as though it
would crack, and perspiration came on to his face. The officer was
rosy, clean-shaven, feminine-looking, and as supple as an English
whip.

"What may I give you?" asked the chemist's wife, holding her dress
across her bosom.

"Give us . . . er-er . . . four pennyworth of peppermint lozenges!"

Without haste the chemist's wife took down a jar from a shelf and
began weighing out lozenges. The customers stared fixedly at her
back; the doctor screwed up his eyes like a well-fed cat, while the
lieutenant was very grave.

"It's the first time I've seen a lady serving in a chemist's shop,"
observed the doctor.

"There's nothing out of the way in it," replied the chemist's wife,
looking out of the corner of her eye at the rosy-cheeked officer.
"My husband has no assistant, and I always help him."

"To be sure. . . . You have a charming little shop! What a number
of different . . . jars! And you are not afraid of moving about
among the poisons? Brrr!"

The chemist's wife sealed up the parcel and handed it to the doctor.
Obtyosov gave her the money. Half a minute of silence followed. . . .
The men exchanged glances, took a step towards the door, then
looked at one another again.

"Will you give me two pennyworth of soda?" said the doctor.

Again the chemist's wife slowly and languidly raised her hand to
the shelf.

"Haven't you in the shop anything . . . such as . . ." muttered
Obtyosov, moving his fingers, "something, so to say, allegorical
. . . revivifying . . . seltzer-water, for instance. Have you any
seltzer-water?"

"Yes," answered the chemist's wife.

"Bravo! You're a fairy, not a woman! Give us three bottles!"

The chemist's wife hurriedly sealed up the soda and vanished through
the door into the darkness.

"A peach!" said the doctor, with a wink. "You wouldn't find a
pineapple like that in the island of Madeira! Eh? What do you say?
Do you hear the snoring, though? That's his worship the chemist
enjoying sweet repose."

A minute later the chemist's wife came back and set five bottles
on the counter. She had just been in the cellar, and so was flushed
and rather excited.

"Sh-sh! . . . quietly!" said Obtyosov when, after uncorking the
bottles, she dropped the corkscrew. "Don't make such a noise; you'll
wake your husband."

"Well, what if I do wake him?"

"He is sleeping so sweetly . . . he must be dreaming of you. . . .
To your health!"

"Besides," boomed the doctor, hiccupping after the seltzer-water,
"husbands are such a dull business that it would be very nice of
them to be always asleep. How good a drop of red wine would be in
this water!"

"What an idea!" laughed the chemist's wife.

"That would be splendid. What a pity they don't sell spirits in
chemist's shops! Though you ought to sell wine as a medicine. Have
you any _vinum gallicum rubrum_?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, give us some! Bring it here, damn it!"

"How much do you want?"

"_Quantum satis_. . . . Give us an ounce each in the water, and
afterwards we'll see. . . . Obtyosov, what do you say? First with
water and afterwards _per se_. . . ."

The doctor and Obtyosov sat down to the counter, took off their
caps, and began drinking the wine.

"The wine, one must admit, is wretched stuff! _Vinum nastissimum!_
Though in the presence of . . . er . . . it tastes like nectar. You
are enchanting, madam! In imagination I kiss your hand."

"I would give a great deal to do so not in imagination," said
Obtyosov. "On my honour, I'd give my life."

"That's enough," said Madame Tchernomordik, flushing and assuming
a serious expression.

"What a flirt you are, though!" the doctor laughed softly, looking
slyly at her from under his brows. "Your eyes seem to be firing
shot: piff-paff! I congratulate you: you've conquered! We are
vanquished!"

The chemist's wife looked at their ruddy faces, listened to their
chatter, and soon she, too, grew quite lively. Oh, she felt so gay!
She entered into the conversation, she laughed, flirted, and even,
after repeated requests from the customers, drank two ounces of
wine.

"You officers ought to come in oftener from the camp," she said;
"it's awful how dreary it is here. I'm simply dying of it."

"I should think so!" said the doctor indignantly. "Such a peach, a
miracle of nature, thrown away in the wilds! How well Griboyedov
said, 'Into the wilds, to Saratov'! It's time for us to be off,
though. Delighted to have made your acquaintance . . . very. How
much do we owe you?"

The chemist's wife raised her eyes to the ceiling and her lips moved
for some time.

"Twelve roubles forty-eight kopecks," she said.

Obtyosov took out of his pocket a fat pocket-book, and after fumbling
for some time among the notes, paid.

"Your husband's sleeping sweetly . . . he must be dreaming," he
muttered, pressing her hand at parting.

"I don't like to hear silly remarks. . . ."

"What silly remarks? On the contrary, it's not silly at all . . .
even Shakespeare said: 'Happy is he who in his youth is young.'"

"Let go of my hand."

At last after much talk and after kissing the lady's hand at parting,
the customers went out of the shop irresolutely, as though they
were wondering whether they had not forgotten something.

She ran quickly into the bedroom and sat down in the same place.
She saw the doctor and the officer, on coming out of the shop, walk
lazily away a distance of twenty paces; then they stopped and began
whispering together. What about? Her heart throbbed, there was a
pulsing in her temples, and why she did not know. . . . Her heart
beat violently as though those two whispering outside were deciding
her fate.

Five minutes later the doctor parted from Obtyosov and walked on,
while Obtyosov came back. He walked past the shop once and a second
time. . . . He would stop near the door and then take a few steps
again. At last the bell tinkled discreetly.

"What? Who is there?" the chemist's wife heard her husband's voice
suddenly. "There's a ring at the bell, and you don't hear it," he
said severely. "Is that the way to do things?"

He got up, put on his dressing-gown, and staggering, half asleep,
flopped in his slippers to the shop.

"What . . . is it?" he asked Obtyosov.

"Give me . . . give me four pennyworth of peppermint lozenges."

Sniffing continually, yawning, dropping asleep as he moved, and
knocking his knees against the counter, the chemist went to the
shelf and reached down the jar.

Two minutes later the chemist's wife saw Obtyosov go out of the
shop, and, after he had gone some steps, she saw him throw the
packet of peppermints on the dusty road. The doctor came from behind
a corner to meet him. . . . They met and, gesticulating, vanished
in the morning mist.

"How unhappy I am!" said the chemist's wife, looking angrily at her
husband, who was undressing quickly to get into bed again. "Oh, how
unhappy I am!" she repeated, suddenly melting into bitter tears.
"And nobody knows, nobody knows. . . ."

"I forgot fourpence on the counter," muttered the chemist, pulling
the quilt over him. "Put it away in the till, please. . . ."

And at once he fell asleep again.



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