One day Lavretsky, according to his habit, was at the Kalitins’. After
an exhaustingly hot day, such a lovely evening had set in that Marya
Dmitrievna, in spite of her aversion to a draught, ordered all the
windows and doors into the garden to be thrown open, and declared
that she would not play cards, that it was a sin to play cards in such
weather, and one ought to enjoy nature. Panshin was the only guest. He
was stimulated by the beauty of the evening, and conscious of a flood of
artistic sensations, but he did not care to sing before Lavretsky, so he
fell to reading poetry; he read aloud well, but too self-consciously and
with unnecessary refinements, a few poems of Lermontov (Pushkin had not
then come into fashion again). Then suddenly, as though ashamed of his
enthusiasm, began, à propos of the well-known poem, “A Reverie,” to
attack and fall foul of the younger generation. While doing so he did
not lose the opportunity of expounding how he would change everything
after his own fashion, if the power were in his hands. “Russia,” he
said, “has fallen behind Europe; we must catch her up. It is maintained
that we are young--that’s nonsense. Moreover we have no inventiveness:
Homakov himself admits that we have not even invented mouse-traps.
Consequently, whether we will or no, we must borrow from others. We are
sick, Lermontov says--I agree with him. But we are sick from having only
half become Europeans, we must take a hair of the dog that bit us (“le
cadastre,” thought Lavretsky). “The best heads, les meilleures têtes,”
he continued, “among us have long been convinced of it. All peoples are
essentially alike; only introduce among them good institutions, and
the thing is done. Of course there may be adaptation to the existing
national life; that is our affair--the affair of the official (he
almost said “governing”) class. But in case of need don’t be uneasy.
The institutions will transform the life itself.” Marya Dmitrievna
most feelingly assented to all Panshin said. “What a clever man,” she
thought, “is talking in my drawing-room!” Lisa sat in silence leaning
back against the window; Lavretsky too was silent. Marfa Timofyevna,
playing cards with her old friend in the corner, muttered something to
herself. Panshin walked up and down the room, and spoke eloquently, but
with secret exasperation. It seemed as if he were abusing not a whole
generation but a few people known to him. In a great lilac bush in the
Kalitins’ garden a nightingale had built its nest; its first evening
notes filled the pauses of the eloquent speech; the first stars were
beginning to shine in the rosy sky over the motionless tops of the
limes. Lavretsky got up and began to answer Panshin; an argument sprang
up. Lavretsky championed the youth and the independence of Russia; he
was ready to throw over himself and his generation, but he stood up for
the new men, their convictions and desires. Panshin answered sharply
and irritably. He maintained that the intelligent people ought to change
everything, and was at last even brought to the point of forgetting his
position as a kammer-yunker, and his career as an official, and calling
Lavretsky an antiquated conservative, even hinting--very remotely it
is true--at his dubious position in society. Lavretsky did not lose his
temper. He did not raise his voice (he recollected that Mihalevitch
too had called him antiquated but an antiquated Voltairean), and
calmly proceeded to refute Panshin at all points. He proved to him the
impracticability of sudden leaps and reforms from above, founded neither
on knowledge of the mother-country, nor on any genuine faith in any
ideal, even a negative one. He brought forward his own education as an
example, and demanded before all things a recognition of the true spirit
of the people and submission to it, without which even a courageous
combat against error is impossible. Finally he admitted the
reproach--well-deserved as he thought--of reckless waste of time and
strength.
“That is all very fine!” cried Panshin at last, getting angry. “You now
have just returned to Russia, what do you intend to do?”
“Cultivate the soil,” answered Lavretsky, “and try to cultivate it as
well as possible.”
“That is very praiseworthy, no doubt,” rejoined Panshin, “and I have
been told that you have already had great success in that line; but you
must allow that not every one is fit for pursuits of that kind.”
“Une nature poétique,” observed Marya Dmitrievna, “cannot, to be sure,
cultivate... et puis, it is your vocation, Vladimir Nikolaich, to do
everything en grand.”
This was too much even for Panshin: he grew confused and changed the
conversation. He tried to turn it upon the beauty of the starlit sky,
the music of Schubert; nothing was successful. He ended by proposing
to Marya Dmitrievna a game of picquet. “What! on such an evening?” she
replied feebly. She ordered the cards to be brought in, however. Panshin
tore open a new pack of cards with a loud crash, and Lisa and Lavretsky
both got up as if by agreement, and went and placed themselves near
Marfa Timofyevna. They both felt all at once so happy that they were
even a little afraid of remaining alone together, and at the same time
they both felt that the embarrassment they had been conscious of for
the last few days had vanished, and would return no more. The old lady
stealthily patted Lavretsky on the cheek, slyly screwed up her eyes, and
shook her head once or twice, adding in a whisper, “You have shut up our
clever friend, many thanks.” Everything was hushed in the room; the only
sound was the faint crackling of the wax-candles, and sometimes the tap
of a hand on the table, and an exclamation or reckoning of points; and
the rich torrent of the nightingale’s song, powerful piercingly sweet,
poured in at the window, together with the dewy freshness of the night.