I
The medical student Mayer, and Ribnikov, a student at the Moscow school
of painting, sculpture, and architecture, came one evening to their
friend Vassiliev, law student, and proposed that he should go with
them to S----v Street. For a long while Vassiliev did not agree, but
eventually dressed himself and went with them.
Unfortunate women he knew only by hearsay and from books, and never
once in his life had he been in the houses where they live. He knew
there were immoral women who were forced by the pressure of disastrous
circumstances--environment, bad up-bringing, poverty, and the like--to
sell their honour for money. They do not know pure love, have no
children and no legal rights; mothers and sisters mourn them for
dead, science treats them as an evil, men are familiar with them. But
notwithstanding all this they do not lose the image and likeness of
God. They all acknowledge their sin and hope for salvation. They are
free to avail themselves of every means of salvation. True, Society
does not forgive people their past, but with God Mary of Egypt is
not lower than the other saints. Whenever Vassiliev recognised an
unfortunate woman in the street by her costume or her manner, or saw a
picture of one in a comic paper, there came into his mind every time
a story he once read somewhere: a pure and heroic young man falls in
love with an unfortunate woman and asks her to be his wife, but she,
considering herself unworthy of such happiness, poisons herself.
Vassiliev lived in one of the streets off the Tverskoi boulevard.
When he and his friends came out of the house it was about eleven
o’clock--the first snow had just fallen and all nature was under
the spell of this new snow. The air smelt of snow, the snow cracked
softly under foot, the earth, the roofs, the trees, the benches on the
boulevards--all were soft, white, and young. Owing to this the houses
had a different look from yesterday, the lamps burned brighter, the
air was more transparent, the clatter of the cabs was dulled and there
entered into the soul with the fresh, easy, frosty air a feeling like
the white, young, feathery snow. “To these sad shores unknowing” the
medico began to sing in a pleasant tenor, “An unknown power entices”.
“Behold the mill” ... the painter’s voice took him up, “it is now
fall’n to ruin.”
“Behold the mill, it is now fall’n to ruin,” the medico repeated,
raising his eyebrows and sadly shaking his head.
He was silent for a while, passed his hand over his forehead trying to
recall the words, and began to sing in a loud voice and so well that
the passers-by looked back.
“Here, long ago, came free, free love to me”...
All three went into a restaurant and without taking off their coats
they each had two thimblefuls of vodka at the bar. Before drinking the
second, Vassiliev noticed a piece of cork in his Vodka, lifted the
glass to his eye, looked at it for a long while with a short-sighted
frown. The medico misunderstood his expression and said--
“Well, what are you staring at? No philosophy, please. Vodka’s made to
be drunk, caviare to be eaten, women to sleep with, snow to walk on.
Live like a man for one evening.”
“Well, I’ve nothing to say,” said Vassiliev laughingly, “I’m not
refusing?”
The vodka warmed his breast. He looked at his friends, admired and
envied them. How balanced everything is in these healthy, strong,
cheerful people. Everything in their minds and souls is smooth and
rounded off. They sing, have a passion for the theatre, paint, talk
continually, and drink, and they never have a headache the next day.
They are romantic and dissolute, sentimental and insolent; they can
work and go on the loose and laugh at nothing and talk rubbish; they
are hot-headed, honest, heroic and as human beings not a bit worse
than Vassiliev, who watches his every step and word, who is careful,
cautious, and able to give the smallest trifle the dignity of a
problem. And he made up his mind if only for one evening to live like
his friends, to let himself go, and be free from his own control.
Must he drink vodka? He’ll drink, even if his head falls to pieces
to-morrow. Must he be taken to women? He’ll go. He’ll laugh, play the
fool, and give a joking answer to disapproving passers-by.
He came out of the restaurant laughing. He liked his friends--one in a
battered hat with a wide brim who aped aesthetic disorder; the other in
a sealskin cap, not very poor, with a pretence of learned Bohemia. He
liked the snow, the paleness, the lamp-lights, the clear black prints
which the passers’ feet left on the snow. He liked the air, and above
all the transparent, tender, naive, virgin tone which can be seen in
nature only twice in the year: when everything is covered in snow, on
the bright days in spring, and on moonlight nights when the ice breaks
on the river.
“To these sad shores unknowing,” he began to sing _sotto-voce,_ “An
unknown power entices.”
And all the way for some reason or other he and his friends had this
melody on their lips. All three hummed it mechanically out of time with
each other.
Vassiliev imagined how in about ten minutes he and his friends would
knock at a door, how they would stealthily walk through the narrow
little passages and dark rooms to the women, how he would take
advantage of the dark, suddenly strike a match, and see lit up a
suffering face and a guilty smile. There he will surely find a fair
or a dark woman in a white nightgown with her hair loose. She will be
frightened of the light, dreadfully confused and say: “Good God! What
are you doing? Blow it out!” All this was frightening, but curious and
novel.