When Lavretzky reached home, he was met on the threshold of the
drawing-room by a tall, thin man, in a threadbare blue coat, with frowzy
grey side-whiskers, a long, straight nose, and small, inflamed eyes. This
was Mikhalevitch, his former comrade at the university. Lavretzky did
not recognise him at first, but embraced him warmly as soon as he
mentioned his name. They had not seen each other since the Moscow days.
There was a shower of exclamations, of questions; long-smothered memories
came forth into the light of day. Hurriedly smoking pipe after pipe,
drinking down tea in gulps, and flourishing his long arms, Mikhalevitch
narrated his adventures to Lavretzky; there was nothing very cheerful
about them, he could not boast of success in his enterprises,--but he
laughed incessantly, with a hoarse, nervous laugh. A month previously, he
had obtained a situation in the private counting-house of a wealthy
distiller, about three hundred versts from the town of O * * *, and,
on learning of Lavretzky's return from abroad, he had turned aside from
his road, in order to see his old friend. Mikhalevitch talked as
abruptly as in his younger days, was as noisy and effervescent as ever.
Lavretzky was about to allude to his circumstances, but Mikhalevitch
interrupted him, hastily muttering: "I've heard, brother, I've heard
about it,--who could have anticipated it?"--and immediately turned the
conversation into the region of general comments.
"I, brother,"--he said:--"must leave thee to-morrow; to-day, thou must
excuse me--we will go to bed late--I positively must find out what are
thy opinions, convictions, what sort of a person thou hast become, what
life has taught thee." (Mikhalevitch still retained the phraseology of
the '30s.) "So far as I myself am concerned, I have changed in many
respects, brother: the billows of life have fallen upon my breast,--who
the dickens was it that said that?--although, in important, essential
points, I have not changed; I believe, as of yore, in the good, in the
truth; but I not only believe,--I am now a believer, yes--I am a
believer, a religious believer. Hearken, thou knowest that I write
verses; there is no poetry in them, but there is truth. I will recite to
thee my last piece: in it I have given expression to my most sincere
convictions. Listen."--Mikhalevitch began to recite a poem; it was
rather long, and wound up with the following lines:
"To new feeling I have surrendered myself with all my heart,
I have become like a child in soul:
And I have burned all that I worshipped.
I have worshipped all that I burned."
As he declaimed these last two lines, Mikhalevitch was on the verge of
tears; slight convulsive twitchings, the signs of deep feeling--flitted
across his broad lips, his ugly face lighted up. Lavretzky listened and
listened to him; the spirit of contradiction began to stir within him:
the ever-ready, incessantly-seething enthusiasm of the Moscow student
irritated him. A quarter of an hour had not elapsed, before a dispute
flared up between them, one of those interminable disputes, of which only
Russians are capable. After a separation of many years' duration, spent
in two widely-different spheres, understanding clearly neither other
people's thoughts nor their own,--cavilling at words and retorting with
mere words, they argued about the most abstract subjects,--and argued as
though it were a matter of life and death to both of them: they shouted
and yelled so, that all the people in the house took fright, and poor
Lemm, who, from the moment of Mikhalevitch's arrival, had locked himself
up in his room, became bewildered, and began, in a confused way, to be
afraid.
"But what art thou after this? disillusioned?"--shouted Mikhalevitch at
one o'clock in the morning.
"Are there any such disillusioned people?"--retorted Lavretzky:--"they
are all poor and ill,--and I'll pick thee up with one hand, shall I?"
"Well, if not a _disillusioned_ man, then a _sceptuik_, and that is still
worse." (Mikhalevitch's pronunciation still smacked of his native Little
Russia.) "And what right hast thou to be a sceptic? Thou hast had bad
luck in life, granted; that was no fault of thine: thou wert born with a
passionate, loving soul, and thou wert forcibly kept away from women: the
first woman that came in thy way was bound to deceive thee."
"And she did deceive me,"--remarked Lavretzky, gloomily.
"Granted, granted; I was the instrument of fate there,--but what nonsense
am I talking?--there's no fate about it; it's merely an old habit of
expressing myself inaccurately. But what does that prove?"
"It proves, that they dislocated me in my childhood."
"But set thy joints! to that end thou art a human being, a man; thou hast
no need to borrow energy! But, at any rate, is it possible, is it
permissible, to erect a private fact, so to speak, into a general law,
into an immutable law?"
"Where is the rule?"--interrupted Lavretzky,--"I do not admit...."
"Yes, it is thy rule, thy rule," Mikhalevitch interrupted him in his
turn....
"Thou art an egoist, that's what thou art!"--he thundered, an hour
later:--"thou hast desired thine own personal enjoyment, thou hast
desired happiness in life, thou hast desired to live for thyself
alone...."
"What dost thou mean by personal enjoyment?"
"And everything has deceived thee; everything has crumbled away beneath
thy feet."
"What is personal enjoyment,--I ask thee?"
"And it was bound to crumble. For thou hast sought support where it was
not to be found, for thou hast built thy house on a quicksand...."
"Speak more plainly, without metaphors, because I do not understand
thee."
"Because,--laugh if it pleases thee,--because there is no faith in thee,
no warmth of heart; mind, merely a farthing mind; thou art simply a
pitiful, lagging Voltairian--that's what thou art!"
"Who--I am a Voltairian?"
"Yes, just the same sort as thy father was, and dost not suspect it
thyself."
"After that,"--cried Lavretzky,--"I have a right to say that thou art a
fanatic!"
"Alas!"--returned Mikhalevitch, with contrition:--"unhappily, as yet I
have in no way earned so lofty an appellation...."
"Now I have discovered what to call thee,"--shouted this same
Mikhalevitch, at three o'clock in the morning;--"thou art not a sceptic,
not a disillusioned man, not a Voltairian,--thou art a trifler, and thou
art an evil-minded trifler, a conscious trifler, not an ingenuous
trifler. Ingenuous triflers lie around on the oven and do nothing,
because they do not know how to do anything; and they think of nothing.
But thou art a thinking man,--and thou liest around; thou mightest do
something--and thou dost nothing; thou liest with thy well-fed belly
upward and sayest: 'It is proper to lie thus, because everything that men
do is nonsense, and twaddle which leads to nothing.'"
"But what makes thee think that I trifle,"--insisted Lavretzky:--"why
dost thou assume such thoughts on my part?"
"And more than that, all of you, all the people of your sort,"--pursued
the obstreperous Mikhalevitch:--"are erudite triflers. You know on what
foot the German limps, you know what is bad about the English and the
French,--and your knowledge comes to your assistance, justifies your
shameful laziness, your disgusting inactivity. Some men will even pride
themselves, and say, 'What a clever fellow I am!--I lie around, but the
others, the fools, bustle about.' Yes!--And there are such gentlemen
among us,--I am not saying this with reference to thee, however,--who
pass their whole lives in a sort of stupor of tedium, grow accustomed to
it, sit in it like ... like a mushroom in sour cream," Mikhalevitch
caught himself up, and burst out laughing at his own comparison.--"Oh,
that stupor of tedium is the ruin of the Russians! The repulsive trifler,
all his life long, is getting ready to work...."
"Come, what art thou calling names for?"--roared Lavretzky, in his
turn.--"Work ... act ... Tell me, rather, what to do, but don't call
names, you Poltava Demosthenes!"
"Just see what a freak he has taken! I'll not tell thee that, brother;
every one must know that himself," retorted Demosthenes, ironically.--"A
landed proprietor, a nobleman--and he doesn't know what to do! Thou hast
no faith, or thou wouldst know; thou hast no faith--and there is no
revelation."
"Give me a rest, at any rate, you devil: give me a chance to look around
me,"--entreated Lavretzky.
"Not a minute, not a second of respite!"--retorted Mikhalevitch, with an
imperious gesture of the hand.--"Not one second!--Death does not wait,
and life ought not to wait."...
"And when, where did men get the idea of becoming triflers?"--he shouted,
at four o'clock in the morning, but his voice had now begun to be rather
hoarse: "among us! now! in Russia! when on every separate individual a
duty, a great obligation is incumbent toward God, toward the nation,
toward himself! We are sleeping, but time is passing on; we are
sleeping...."
"Permit me to observe to thee,"--said Lavretzky,--"that we are not
sleeping at all, now, but are, rather, preventing others from sleeping.
We are cracking our throats like cocks. Hark, isn't that the third
cock-crow?"
This sally disconcerted and calmed down Mikhalevitch. "Farewell until
to-morrow,"--he said, with a smile,--and thrust his pipe into his
tobacco-pouch. "Farewell until to-morrow," repeated Lavretzky. But the
friends conversed for an hour longer. However, their voices were no
longer raised, and their speeches were quiet, sad, and kind.
Mikhalevitch departed on the following day, in spite of all Lavretzky's
efforts to detain him. Feodor Ivanitch did not succeed in persuading
him to remain; but he talked with him to his heart's content. It came
out, that Mikhalevitch had not a penny in the world. Already, on the
preceding evening, Lavretzky, with compassion, had observed in him all
the signs and habits of confirmed poverty; his boots were broken, a
button was missing from the back of his coat, his hands were guiltless of
gloves, down was visible in his hair; on his arrival, it had not occurred
to him to ask for washing materials, and at supper he ate like a shark,
tearing the meat apart with his hands, and cracking the bones noisily
with his strong, black teeth. It appeared, also, that the service had
been of no benefit to him, that he had staked all his hopes on the
revenue-farmer, who had engaged him simply with the object of having in
his counting-house "an educated man." In spite of all this, Mikhalevitch
was not dejected, and lived on as a cynic, an idealist, a poet, sincerely
rejoicing and grieving over the lot of mankind, over his own
calling,--and troubled himself very little as to how he was to keep
himself from dying with hunger. Mikhalevitch had not married, but had
been in love times without number, and wrote verses about all his
lady-loves; with especial fervour did he sing the praises of one
mysterious "panna" with black and curling locks.... Rumours were in
circulation, it is true, to the effect that the "panna" in question was a
plain Jewess, well known to many cavalry officers ... but, when you come
to think of it,--does that make any difference?
Mikhalevitch did not get on well with Lemm: his vociferous speeches, his
harsh manners, frightened the German, who was not used to such things....
An unfortunate wretch always scents another unfortunate wretch from afar,
but rarely makes up to him in old age,--and this is not in the least to
be wondered at: he has nothing to share with him,--not even hopes.
Before his departure, Mikhalevitch had another long talk with
Lavretzky, prophesied perdition to him, if he did not come to a sense of
his errors, entreated him to occupy himself seriously with the existence
of his peasants, set himself up as an example, saying, that he had been
purified in the furnace of affliction,--and immediately thereafter,
several times mentioned himself as a happy man, compared himself to the
birds of heaven, the lilies of the field....
"A black lily, at any rate,"--remarked Lavretzky.
"Eh, brother, don't put on any of your aristocratic airs,"--retorted
Mikhalevitch, good-naturedly:--"but thank God, rather, that in thy veins
flows honest, plebeian blood. But I perceive, that thou art now in need
of some pure, unearthly being, who shall wrest thee from this apathy of
thine."
"Thanks, brother,"--said Lavretzky:--"I have had enough of those
unearthly beings."
"Shut up, _cuinuik!_"--exclaimed Mikhalevitch.
"Cynic,"--Lavretzky corrected him.
"Just so, _cuinuik_,"--repeated Mikhalevitch, in no wise disconcerted.
Even as he took his seat in the tarantas, to which his flat, yellow,
strangely light trunk was carried forth, he continued to talk; wrapped up
in some sort of a Spanish cloak with a rusty collar, and lion's paws in
place of clasps, he still went on setting forth his views as to the fate
of Russia, and waving his swarthy hand through the air, as though he were
sowing the seeds of its future welfare. At last the horses started....
"Bear in mind my last three words,"--he shouted, thrusting his whole body
out of the tarantas, and balancing himself:--"religion, progress,
humanity!... Farewell!" His head, with its cap pulled down to the very
eyes, vanished. Lavretzky remained standing alone on the porch and
staring down the road until the tarantas disappeared from his sight.
"But I think he probably is right,"--he said to himself, as he reentered
the house:--"probably I am a trifler." Many of Mikhalevitch's words had
sunk indelibly into his soul, although he had disputed and had not agreed
with him. If only a man be kindly, no one can repulse him.
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[10] Polish for "gentlewoman."--Translator.