[Footnote A: Omitted in the French translation.]
On entering the drawing-room, after his return home, Lavretsky met
a tall, thin man, with a wrinkled but animated face, untidy grey
whiskers, a long, straight nose, and small, inflamed eyes. This
individual, who was dressed in a shabby blue surtout, was Mikhalevich,
his former comrade at the University. At first Lavretsky did not
recognize him, but he warmly embraced him as soon as he had made
himself known. The two friends had not seen each other since the old
Moscow days. Then followed exclamations and questions. Memories long
lost to sight came out again into the light of day. Smoking pipe after
pipe in a hurried manner, gulping down his tea, and waving his long
hands in the air, Mikhalevich related his adventures. There was
nothing very brilliant about them, and he could boast of but little
success in his various enterprises; but he kept incessantly laughing a
hoarse, nervous laugh. It seemed that about a month previously he
had obtained a post in the private counting-house of a rich
brandy-farmer,[A] at about three hundred versts from O., and having
heard of Lavretsky's return from abroad, he had turned out of his
road for the purpose of seeing his old friend again. He spoke just
as jerkingly as he used to do in the days of youth, and he became as
noisy and as warm as he was in the habit of growing then. Lavretsky
began to speak about his own affairs, but Mikhalevich stopped him,
hastily stammering out, "I have heard about it, brother; I have heard
about it. Who could have expected it?" and then immediately turned the
conversation on topics of general interest.
[Footnote A: One of the contractors who used to purchase the right of
supplying the people with brandy.]
"I must go away again to-morrow, brother," he said. "To-day, if you
will allow it, we will sit up late. I want to get a thoroughly
good idea of what you are now, what your intentions are and your
convictions, what sort of man you have become, what life has taught
you" (Mikhalevich still made use of the phraseology current in the
year 1830). "As for me, brother, I have become changed in many
respects. The waters of life have gone over my breast. Who was it
said that? But in what is important, what is substantial, I have not
changed. I believe, as I used to do, in the Good, in the True. And
not only do I believe, but I feel certain now--yes, I feel certain,
certain. Listen; I make verses, you know. There's no poetry in them,
but there is truth. I will read you my last piece. I have expressed in
it my most sincere convictions. Now listen."
Mikhalevich began to read his poem, which was rather a long one. It
ended with the following lines:--
"With my whole heart have I given myself up to new feelings;
In spirit I have become like unto a child,
And I have burnt all that I used to worship,
I worship all that I used to burn."
Mikhalevich all but wept as he pronounced these last two verses. A
slight twitching, the sign of a strong emotion, affected his large
lips; his plain face lighted up. Lavretsky went on listening until
at last the spirit of contradiction was roused within him. He became
irritated by the Moscow student's enthusiasm, so perpetually on the
boil, so continually ready for use. A quarter of an hour had not
elapsed before a dispute had been kindled between the two friends, one
of those endless disputes of which only Russians are capable. They
two, after a separation which had lasted for many years, and those
passed in two different worlds, neither of them clearly understanding
the other's thoughts, not even his own, holding fast by words, and
differing in words alone, disputed about the most purely abstract
ideas--and disputed exactly as if the matter had been one of life and
death to both of them. They shouted and cried aloud to such an extent
that every one in the house was disturbed, and poor Lemm, who had shut
himself up in his room the moment Mikhalevich arrived, felt utterly
perplexed, and even began to entertain some vague form of fear.
"But after all this, what are you? _blasé_!"[A] cried Mikhalevich at
midnight.
[Footnote A: Literally, "disillusioned."]
"Does a _blasé_ man ever look like me?" answered Lavretsky. "He is
always pale and sickly; but I, if you like, will lift you off the
ground with one hand."
"Well then, if not _blasé_, at least a sceptic,[A] and that is still
worse. But what right have you to be a sceptic? Your life has not been
a success, I admit. That wasn't your fault. You were endowed with a
soul full of affection, fit for passionate love, and you were kept
away from women by force. The first woman you came across was sure to
take you in."
[Footnote A: He says in that original _Skyeptuik_ instead of
_Skeptik_, on which the author remarks, "Mikhalevich's accent
testified to his birth-place having been in Little Russia."]
"She took you in, too," morosely remarked Lavretsky.
"Granted, granted. In that I was the tool of fate. But I'm talking
nonsense. There's no such thing as fate. My old habit of expressing
myself inaccurately! But what does that prove?"
"It proves this much, that I have been distorted from childhood."
"Well, then, straighten yourself. That's the good of being a man.
You haven't got to borrow energy. But, however that may be, is it
possible, is it allowable, to work upwards from an isolated fact, so
to speak, to a general law--to an invariable rule?"
"What rule?" said Lavretsky, interrupting him. "I do not admit--"
"No, that is your rule, that is your rule," cried the other,
interrupting him in his turn.
"You are an egotist, that's what it is!" thundered Mikhalevich an hour
later. "You wanted self-enjoyment; you wanted a happy life; you wanted
to live only for yourself--"
"What is self-enjoyment?"
"--And every thing has failed you; everything has given way under your
feet."
"But what is self-enjoyment, I ask you?"
"--And it ought to give way. Because you looked for support there,
where it is impossible to find it; because you built your house on the
quicksands--"
"Speak plainer, without metaphor, _because_ I do not understand you."
"--Because--laugh away if you like--because there is no faith in you,
no hearty warmth--and only a poor farthingsworth of intellect;[A]
you are simply a pitiable creature, a behind--your--age disciple of
Voltaire. That's what you are."
[Footnote A: Literally, "intellect, in all merely a copeck
intellect."]
"Who? I a disciple of Voltaire?"
"Yes, just such a one as your father was; and you have never so much
as suspected it."
"After that," exclaimed Lavretsky, "I have a right to say that you are
a fanatic."
"Alas!" sorrowfully replied Mikhalevich, "unfortunately, I have not
yet in any way deserved so grand a name--"
"I have found out now what to call you!" cried the self-same
Mikhalevich at three o'clock in the morning.
"You are not a sceptic, nor are you a _blasé_, nor a disciple of
Voltaire; you are a marmot,[A] and a culpable marmot; a marmot with a
conscience, not a naïve marmot. Naïve marmots lie on the stove[B]
and do nothing, because they can do nothing. They do not even think
anything. But you are a thinking man, and yet you lie idly there. You
could do something, and you do nothing. You lie on the top with full
paunch and say, 'To lie idle--so must it be; because all that people
ever do--is all vanity, mere nonsense that conduces to nothing.'"
[Footnote A: A _baibak_, a sort of marmot or "prairie dog."]
[Footnote B: The top of the stove forms the sleeping place in a
Russian peasant's hut.]
"But what has shown you that I lie idle?" insisted Lavretsky. "Why do
you suppose I have such ideas?"
"--And, besides this, all you people, all your brotherhood," continued
Mikhalevich without stopping, "are deeply read marmots. You all
know where the German's shoe pinches him; you all know what faults
Englishmen and Frenchmen have; and your miserable knowledge only
serves to help you to justify your shameful laziness, your abominable
idleness. There are some who even pride themselves on this, that 'I,
forsooth, am a learned man. I lie idle, and they are fools to give
themselves trouble.' Yes! even such persons as these do exist among
us; not that I say this with reference to you; such persons as will
spend all their life in a certain languor of ennui, and get accustomed
to it, and exist in it like--like a mushroom in sour cream"
(Mikhalevich could not help laughing at his own comparison). "Oh, that
languor of ennui! it is the ruin of the Russian people. Throughout all
time the wretched marmot is making up its mind to work--"
"But, after all, what are you scolding about?" cried Lavretsky in his
turn. "To work, to do. You had better say what one should do, instead
of scolding, O Demosthenes of Poltava."[A]
[Footnote A: Poltava is a town of Little Russia. It will be remembered
that Mikhalovich is a Little Russian.]
"Ah, yes, that's what you want! No, brother, I will not tell you that.
Every one must teach himself that," replied Demosthenes in an ironical
tone. "A proprietor, a noble, and not know what to do! You have no
faith, or you would have known. No faith and no divination."[A]
[Footnote A: _Otkrovenie_, discovery or revelation.]
"At all events, let me draw breath for a moment, you fiend," prayed
Lavretsky. "Let me take a look round me!"
"Not a minute's breathing-time, not a second's," replied Mikhalevich,
with a commanding gesture of the hand. "Not a single second. Death
does not tarry, and life also ought not to tarry."
"And when and where have people taken it into their heads to make
marmots of themselves?" he cried at four in the morning, in a voice
that was now somewhat hoarse, "Why, here! Why, now! In Russia! When on
every separate individual there lies a duty, a great responsibility,
before God, before the nation, before himself! We sleep, but time goes
by. We sleep--"
"Allow me to point, out to you," observed Lavretsky, "that we do
not at all sleep at present, but rather prevent other persons from
sleeping. We stretch our throats like barn-door cocks. Listen, that
one is crowing for the third time."
This sally made Mikhalevich laugh, and sobered him down. "Good night,"
he said with a smile, and put away his pipe in its bag. "Good night,"
said Lavretsky also. However, the friends still went on talking for
more than an hour. But their voices did not rise high any longer, and
their talk was quiet, sad, kindly talk.
Mikhalevich went away next day, in spite of all his host could do to
detain him. Lavretsky did not succeed in persuading him to stay, but
he got as much talk as he wanted out of him.
It turned out that Mikhalevich was utterly impecunious. Lavretsky had
already been sorry to see in him, on the preceding evening, all the
characteristics of a poverty of long standing. His shoes were trodden
down, his coat wanted a button behind, his hands were strangers to
gloves, one or two bits of feather were sticking in his hair. When he
arrived, he did not think of asking for a wash; and at supper he ate
like a shark, tearing the meat to pieces with his fingers, and noisily
gnawing the bones with his firm, discolored teeth.
It turned out, also, that he had not thriven in the civil service, and
that he had pinned all his hopes on the brandy-farmer, who had given
him employment simply that he might have an "educated man" in his
counting-house. In spite of all this, however, Mikhalevich had not
lost courage, but kept on his way leading the life of a cynic, an
idealist, and a poet; fervently caring for, and troubling himself
about, the destinies of humanity and his special vocation in life--and
giving very little heed to the question whether or no he would die of
starvation.
Mikhalevich had never married; but he had fallen in love countless
times, and he always wrote poetry about all his loves: with especial
fervor did he sing about a mysterious, raven-haired "lady." It was
rumored, indeed, that this "lady" was nothing more than a Jewess, and
one who had numerous friends among cavalry officers; but, after all,
if one thinks the matter over, it is not one of much importance.
With Lemm, Mikhalevich did not get on well. His extremely loud way of
talking, his rough manners, frightened the German, to whom they
were entirely novel. One unfortunate man immediately and from afar
recognizes another, but in old age he is seldom willing to associate
with him. Nor is that to be wondered at. He has nothing to share with
him--not even hopes.
Before he left, Mikhalevich had another long talk with Lavretsky, to
whom he predicted utter ruin if he did not rouse himself, and whom
he entreated to occupy himself seriously with the question of the
position of his serfs. He set himself up as a pattern for imitation,
saying that he had been purified in the furnace of misfortune; and
then he several times styled himself a happy man, comparing himself to
a bird of the air, a lily of the valley.
"A dusky lily, at all events," remarked Lavretsky.
"Ah, brother, don't come the aristocrat," answered Mikhalevich
good-humoredly; "but rather thank God that in your veins also there
flows simple plebeian blood. But I see you are now in need of some
pure, unearthly being, who might rouse you from your apathy."
"Thanks, brother," said Lavretsky; "I have had quite enough of those
unearthly beings."
"Silence, cyneec!"[A] exclaimed Mikhalevich.
[Footnote A: He says _Tsuinnik_ instead of _Tsinik_.]
"Cynic," said Lavretsky, correcting him.
"Just so, cyneec," repeated the undisconcerted Mikhalevich.
Even when he had taken his seat in the tarantass, in which his flat
and marvellously light portmanteau had been stowed away, he still
went on talking. Enveloped in a kind of Spanish cloak, with a collar
reddened by long use, and with lion's claws instead of hooks, he
continued to pour forth his opinions on the destinies of Russia,
waving his swarthy hand the while in the air, as if he were sowing the
seeds of future prosperity. At last the horses set off.
"Remember my last three words!" he exclaimed, leaning almost entirely
out of the carriage, and scarcely able to keep his balance. "Religion,
Progress, Humanity! Farewell!" His head, on which his forage cap was
pressed down to his eyes, disappeared from sight. Lavretsky was left
alone at the door, where he remained gazing attentively along the
road, until the carriage was out of sight. "And perhaps he is right,"
he thought, as he went back into the house. "Perhaps I am a marmot."
Much of what Mikhalevich had said had succeeded in winning its way
into his heart, although at the time he had contradicted him and
disagreed with him. Let a man only be perfectly honest--no one can
utterly gainsay him.