"Well--he's a man, that he is! How he grasped them! Didn't he? It's
downright terrible. It grips your heart, that is, it nips your
soul--it's so full of life. Well, now, what about him, that writer,
what happened to him for that?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, for example, did they give him a reward or anything there?"
"But what did they need to reward him for?" I inquired, with crafty
intent.
"For what? The book ... in the nature of a police document. As soon as
they read it ... they consider: Pilá, Sysóika ... what sort of folks
were they? Everybody feels sorry for them.... They're unenlightened,
innocent folks ... What a life they had! Well, and...."
Konováloff looked at me in confusion, and timidly asserted:
"Some sort of orders ought to be given about that. Surely, they are
human beings, and they ought to be supported."
In reply to this, I delivered a whole lecture to him ... But, alas! it
did not produce the effect on which I had reckoned.
Konováloff fell into meditation, drooped his head, rocked his whole
body about, and began to sigh, not interfering with a single word in
my attempt to play the part of a professor. I got tired, at last, and
paused.
Konováloff raised his head and gazed sorrowfully at me.
"And so they did not give him anything?" he inquired.
"Whom?" I asked, having entirely forgotten Ryeshétnikoff.
"The author?"
I was vexed. I made no reply, conscious that this vexation
was begetting in me irritation toward my peculiar audience,
which, evidently, did not regard himself as competent to settle
world-problems, and was inclined to interest himself in the fate of a
man rather than in the fates of humanity.
Konováloff, without waiting for my answer, took the book in his hands,
carefully turned it over, opened it, shut it, and putting it back in
its place, heaved a deep sigh.
"How wonderful it all is, oh Lord!" he said, in an undertone .... "A
man has written a book?... just paper and a few little dots, that's
all.... He wrote it ... and ... is he dead?"
"Yes," I answered curtly.
At that time, I could not endure philosophy, and still less
metaphysics; but Konováloff, without inquiring as to my tastes, went on:
"He is dead, but the book remains, and people read it. A man looks
at it with his eyes, and utters various words. And you listen, and
understand: folks have lived in the world--Pilá, and Sysóika and
Apróska.... And you feel sorry for those folks, although you never
have seen them, and they are nothing whatever to you! There may be
thousands of live folks just like them walking along the street, and
you see them, but you don't know anything about them ... and you care
nothing about them ... they walk on, and on.... But in the book there
are none of them ... still, you are so sorry for them that your very
heart aches.... How can a man understand that?--and so the author got
no reward, and is dead? Nothing happened to him?"
I fairly exploded with rage. I told him all about the rewards of
authors....
Konováloff listened to me, his eyes starting from their sockets with
amazement, as he smacked his lips with compassion.
"A pretty state of things!" he sighed, from a full breast, and gnawing
his left mustache, he hung his head with sorrow.
Then I began to talk about the fatal influence of the dram-shop on the
life of the Russian literary man, about the great and genuine talents
which had gone to perdition through vódka--the only consolation of
their hard-working lives.
"But is it possible that such men drink?" Konováloff asked me, in a
whisper. Distrust of me, together with terror, and pity for these
people flashed in his widely-opened eyes.--"They drink! How can they ...
after they have written books, take to drink?"
In my opinion, this was an irrelevant question, and I made no reply to
it.
"Of course, they do it afterwards,...." Konováloff settled the
point.--"Men live and watch life, and suck in the bitterness of others'
lives. They must have eyes of a special sort. And hearts, also....
They gaze at life, and grow sad.... And they pour out their grief in
their books--.... But this does them no good because their hearts are
touched--and you can't burn grief out of that even with fire ... all
that is left for them to do, is to extinguish it with vódka. Well, and
so they drink.... Have I got that right?"