made things, above all, solidly and substantially, and seeing in that
his chief object, gave to length of life peculiar significance, had no
thought of death, and probably hardly believed in its possibility; I,
when I built my bridges of iron and stone which would last a thousand
years, could not keep from me the thought, "It's not for long....it's no
use." If in time Butyga's cupboard and my bridge should come under the
notice of some sensible historian of art, he would say: "These were two
men remarkable in their own way: Butyga loved his fellow-creatures and
would not admit the thought that they might die and be annihilated, and
so when he made his furniture he had the immortal man in his mind. The
engineer Asorin did not love life or his fellow-creatures; even in the
happy moments of creation, thoughts of death, of finiteness and
dissolution, were not alien to him, and we see how insignificant and
finite, how timid and poor, are these lines of his...."
"I only heat these rooms," muttered Ivan Ivanitch, showing me his rooms.
"Ever since my wife died and my son was killed in the war, I have kept
the best rooms shut up. Yes... see..."
He opened a door, and I saw a big room with four columns, an old piano,
and a heap of peas on the floor; it smelt cold and damp.
"The garden seats are in the next room..." muttered Ivan Ivanitch.
"There's no one to dance the mazurka now.... I've shut them up."
We heard a noise. It was Dr. Sobol arriving. While he was rubbing his
cold hands and stroking his wet beard, I had time to notice in the first
place that he had a very dull life, and so was pleased to see Ivan
Ivanitch and me; and, secondly, that he was a naive and simple-hearted
man. He looked at me as though I were very glad to see him and very much
interested in him.
"I have not slept for two nights," he said, looking at me naively and
stroking his beard. "One night with a confinement, and the next I stayed
at a peasant's with the bugs biting me all night. I am as sleepy as
Satan, do you know."
With an expression on his face as though it could not afford me anything
but pleasure, he took me by the arm and led me to the dining-room. His
naive eyes, his crumpled coat, his cheap tie and the smell of iodoform
made an unpleasant impression upon me; I felt as though I were in vulgar
company. When we sat down to table he filled my glass with vodka, and,
smiling helplessly, I drank it; he put a piece of ham on my plate and I
ate it submissively.
"Repetitia est mater studiorum," said Sobol, hastening to drink off
another wineglassful. "Would you believe it, the joy of seeing good
people has driven away my sleepiness? I have turned into a peasant, a
savage in the wilds; I've grown coarse, but I am still an educated man,
and I tell you in good earnest, it's tedious without company."
They served first for a cold course white sucking-pig with horse-radish
cream, then a rich and very hot cabbage soup with pork on it, with
boiled buckwheat, from which rose a column of steam. The doctor went on
talking, and I was soon convinced that he was a weak, unfortunate man,
disorderly in external life. Three glasses of vodka made him drunk; he
grew unnaturally lively, ate a great deal, kept clearing his throat and
smacking his lips, and already addressed me in Italian, "Eccellenza."
Looking naively at me as though he were convinced that I was very glad
to see and hear him, he informed me that he had long been separated from
his wife and gave her three-quarters of his salary; that she lived in
the town with his children, a boy and a girl, whom he adored; that he
loved another woman, a widow, well educated, with an estate in the
country, but was rarely able to see her, as he was busy with his work
from morning till night and had not a free moment.
"The whole day long, first at the hospital, then on my rounds," he told
us; "and I assure you, Eccellenza, I have not time to read a book, let
alone going to see the woman I love. I've read nothing for ten years!
For ten years, Eccellenza. As for the financial side of the question,
ask Ivan Ivanitch: I have often no money to buy tobacco."
"On the other hand, you have the moral satisfaction of your work," I
said.
"What?" he asked, and he winked. "No," he said, "better let us drink."
I listened to the doctor, and, after my invariable habit, tried to take
his measure by my usual classification--materialist, idealist, filthy
lucre, gregarious instincts, and so on; but no classification fitted him
even approximately; and strange to say, while I simply listened and
looked at him, he seemed perfectly clear to me as a person, but as soon
as I began trying to classify him he became an exceptionally complex,
intricate, and incomprehensible character in spite of all his candour
and simplicity. "Is that man," I asked myself, "capable of wasting other
people's money, abusing their confidence, being disposed to sponge on
them?" And now this question, which had once seemed to me grave and
important, struck me as crude, petty, and coarse.
Pie was served; then, I remember, with long intervals between, during
which we drank home-made liquors, they gave us a stew of pigeons, some
dish of giblets, roast sucking-pig, partridges, cauliflower, curd
dumplings, curd cheese and milk, jelly, and finally pancakes and jam. At
first I ate with great relish, especially the cabbage soup and the
buckwheat, but afterwards I munched and swallowed mechanically, smiling
helplessly and unconscious of the taste of anything. My face was burning
from the hot cabbage soup and the heat of the room. Ivan Ivanitch and
Sobol, too, were crimson.
"To the health of your wife," said Sobol. "She likes me. Tell her her
doctor sends her his respects."
"She's fortunate, upon my word," sighed Ivan Ivanitch. "Though she takes
no trouble, does not fuss or worry herself, she has become the most
important person in the whole district. Almost the whole business is in
her hands, and they all gather round her, the doctor, the District
Captains, and the ladies. With people of the right sort that happens of
itself. Yes.... The apple-tree need take no thought for the apple to
grow on it; it will grow of itself."
"It's only people who don't care who take no thought," said I.
"Eh? Yes..." muttered Ivan Ivanitch, not catching what I said, "that's
true.... One must not worry oneself. Just so, just so.... Only do your
duty towards God and your neighbour, and then never mind what happens."
"Eccellenza," said Sobol solemnly, "just look at nature about us: if you
poke your nose or your ear out of your fur collar it will be frost-
bitten; stay in the fields for one hour, you'll be buried in the snow;
while the village is just the same as in the days of Rurik, the same
Petchenyegs and Polovtsi. It's nothing but being burnt down, starving,
and struggling against nature in every way. What was I saying? Yes! If
one thinks about it, you know, looks into it and analyses all this
hotchpotch, if you will allow me to call it so, it's not life but more
like a fire in a theatre! Any one who falls down or screams with terror,
or rushes about, is the worst enemy of good order; one must stand up and
look sharp, and not stir a hair! There's no time for whimpering and
busying oneself with trifles. When you have to deal with elemental
forces you must put out force against them, be firm and as unyielding as
a stone. Isn't that right, grandfather?" He turned to Ivan Ivanitch and
laughed. "I am no better than a woman myself; I am a limp rag, a flabby
creature, so I hate flabbiness. I can't endure petty feelings! One
mopes, another is frightened, a third will come straight in here and
say: 'Fie on you! Here you've guzzled a dozen courses and you talk about
the starving!' That's petty and stupid! A fourth will reproach you,
Eccellenza, for being rich. Excuse me, Eccellenza," he went on in a loud
voice, laying his hand on his heart, "but your having set our magistrate
the task of hunting day and night for your thieves--excuse me, that's
also petty on your part. I am a little drunk, so that's why I say this
now, but you know, it is petty!"
"Who's asking him to worry himself? I don't understand!" I said, getting
up.
I suddenly felt unbearably ashamed and mortified, and I walked round the
table.
"Who asks him to worry himself? I didn't ask him to.... Damn him!"
"They have arrested three men and let them go again. They turned out not
to be the right ones, and now they are looking for a fresh lot," said
Sobol, laughing. "It's too bad!"
"I did not ask him to worry himself," said I, almost crying with
excitement. "What's it all for? What's it all for? Well, supposing I was
wrong, supposing I have done wrong, why do they try to put me more in
the wrong?"
"Come, come, come, come!" said Sobol, trying to soothe me. "Come! I have
had a drop, that is why I said it. My tongue is my enemy. Come," he
sighed, "we have eaten and drunk wine, and now for a nap."
He got up from the table, kissed Ivan Ivanitch on the head, and
staggering from repletion, went out of the dining-room. Ivan Ivanitch
and I smoked in silence.
"I don't sleep after dinner, my dear," said Ivan Ivanitch, "but you have
a rest in the lounge-room."
I agreed. In the half-dark and warmly heated room they called the
lounge-room, there stood against the walls long, wide sofas, solid and
heavy, the work of Butyga the cabinet maker; on them lay high, soft,
white beds, probably made by the old woman in spectacles. On one of them
Sobol, without his coat and boots, already lay asleep with his face to
the back of the sofa; another bed was awaiting me. I took off my coat
and boots, and, overcome by fatigue, by the spirit of Butyga which
hovered over the quiet lounge-room, and by the light, caressing snore of
Sobol, I lay down submissively.
And at once I began dreaming of my wife, of her room, of the station-
master with his face full of hatred, the heaps of snow, a fire in the
theatre. I dreamed of the peasants who had stolen twenty sacks of rye
out of my barn.
"Anyway, it's a good thing the magistrate let them go," I said.
I woke up at the sound of my own voice, looked for a moment in
perplexity at Sobol's broad back, at the buckles of his waistcoat, at
his thick heels, then lay down again and fell asleep.
When I woke up the second time it was quite dark. Sobol was asleep.
There was peace in my heart, and I longed to make haste home. I dressed
and went out of the lounge-room. Ivan Ivanitch was sitting in a big arm-
chair in his study, absolutely motionless, staring at a fixed point, and
it was evident that he had been in the same state of petrifaction all
the while I had been asleep.
"Good!" I said, yawning. "I feel as though I had woken up after breaking
the fast at Easter. I shall often come and see you now. Tell me, did my
wife ever dine here?"
"So-ome-ti-mes... sometimes,"' muttered Ivan Ivanitch, making an effort
to stir. "She dined here last Saturday. Yes.... She likes me."
After a silence I said:
"Do you remember, Ivan Ivanitch, you told me I had a disagreeable
character and that it was difficult to get on with me? But what am I to
do to make my character different?"
"I don't know, my dear boy.... I'm a feeble old man, I can't advise
you.... Yes.... But I said that to you at the time because I am fond of
you and fond of your wife, and I was fond of your father.... Yes. I
shall soon die, and what need have I to conceal things from you or to
tell you lies? So I tell you: I am very fond of you, but I don't respect
you. No, I don't respect you."
He turned towards me and said in a breathless whisper:
"It's impossible to respect you, my dear fellow. You look like a real
man. You have the figure and deportment of the French President Carnot--I
saw a portrait of him the other day in an illustrated paper... yes....
You use lofty language, and you are clever, and you are high up in the
service beyond all reach, but haven't real soul, my dear boy... there's
no strength in it."
"A Scythian, in fact," I laughed. "But what about my wife? Tell me
something about my wife; you know her better."
I wanted to talk about my wife, but Sobol came in and prevented me.
"I've had a sleep and a wash," he said, looking at me naively. "I'll
have a cup of tea with some rum in it and go home."
VII
It was by now past seven. Besides Ivan Ivanitch, women servants, the old
dame in spectacles, the little girls and the peasant, all accompanied us
from the hall out on to the steps, wishing us good-bye and all sorts of
blessings, while near the horses in the darkness there were standing and
moving about men with lanterns, telling our coachmen how and which way
to drive, and wishing us a lucky journey. The horses, the men, and the
sledges were white.
"Where do all these people come from?" I asked as my three horses and
the doctor's two moved at a walking pace out of the yard.
"They are all his serfs," said Sobol. "The new order has not reached him
yet. Some of the old servants are living out their lives with him, and
then there are orphans of all sorts who have nowhere to go; there are
some, too, who insist on living there, there's no turning them out. A
queer old man!"
Again the flying horses, the strange voice of drunken Nikanor, the wind
and the persistent snow, which got into one's eyes, one's mouth, and
every fold of one's fur coat....
"Well, I am running a rig," I thought, while my bells chimed in with the
doctor's, the wind whistled, the coachmen shouted; and while this
frantic uproar was going on, I recalled all the details of that strange
wild day, unique in my life, and it seemed to me that I really had gone
out of my mind or become a different man. It was as though the man I had
been till that day were already a stranger to me.
The doctor drove behind and kept talking loudly with his coachman. From
time to time he overtook me, drove side by side, and always, with the
same naive confidence that it was very pleasant to me, offered me a
cigarette or asked for the matches. Or, overtaking me, he would lean
right out of his sledge, and waving about the sleeves of his fur coat,
which were at least twice as long as his arms, shout:
"Go it, Vaska! Beat the thousand roublers! Hey, my kittens!"
And to the accompaniment of loud, malicious laughter from Sobol and his
Vaska the doctor's kittens raced ahead. My Nikanor took it as an
affront, and held in his three horses, but when the doctor's bells had
passed out of hearing, he raised his elbows, shouted, and our horses
flew like mad in pursuit. We drove into a village, there were glimpses
of lights, the silhouettes of huts. Some one shouted:
"Ah, the devils!" We seemed to have galloped a mile and a half, and
still it was the village street and there seemed no end to it. When we
caught up the doctor and drove more quietly, he asked for matches and
said:
"Now try and feed that street! And, you know, there are five streets
like that, sir. Stay, stay," he shouted. "Turn in at the tavern! We must
get warm and let the horses rest."
They stopped at the tavern.
"I have more than one village like that in my district," said the
doctor, opening a heavy door with a squeaky block, and ushering me in
front of him. "If you look in broad daylight you can't see to the end of
the street, and there are side-streets, too, and one can do nothing but
scratch one's head. It's hard to do anything."
We went into the best room where there was a strong smell of table-
cloths, and at our entrance a sleepy peasant in a waistcoat and a shirt
worn outside his trousers jumped up from a bench. Sobol asked for some
beer and I asked for tea.
"It's hard to do anything," said Sobol. "Your wife has faith; I respect
her and have the greatest reverence for her, but I have no great faith
myself. As long as our relations to the people continue to have the
character of ordinary philanthropy, as shown in orphan asylums and
almshouses, so long we shall only be shuffling, shamming, and deceiving
ourselves, and nothing more. Our relations ought to be businesslike,
founded on calculation, knowledge, and justice. My Vaska has been
working for me all his life; his crops have failed, he is sick and
starving. If I give him fifteen kopecks a day, by so doing I try to
restore him to his former condition as a workman; that is, I am first
and foremost looking after my own interests, and yet for some reason I
call that fifteen kopecks relief, charity, good works. Now let us put it
like this. On the most modest computation, reckoning seven kopecks a
soul and five souls a family, one needs three hundred and fifty roubles
a day to feed a thousand families. That sum is fixed by our practical
duty to a thousand families. Meanwhile we give not three hundred and
fifty a day, but only ten, and say that that is relief, charity, that
that makes your wife and all of us exceptionally good people and hurrah
for our humaneness. That is it, my dear soul! Ah! if we would talk less
of being humane and calculated more, reasoned, and took a conscientious
attitude to our duties! How many such humane, sensitive people there are
among us who tear about in all good faith with subscription lists, but
don't pay their tailors or their cooks. There is no logic in our life;
that's what it is! No logic!"
We were silent for a while. I was making a mental calculation and said:
"I will feed a thousand families for two hundred days. Come and see me
tomorrow to talk it over."
I was pleased that this was said quite simply, and was glad that Sobol
answered me still more simply:
"Right."
We paid for what we had and went out of the tavern.
"I like going on like this," said Sobol, getting into the sledge.
"Eccellenza, oblige me with a match. I've forgotten mine in the tavern."
A quarter of an hour later his horses fell behind, and the sound of his
bells was lost in the roar of the snow-storm. Reaching home, I walked
about my rooms, trying to think things over and to define my position
clearly to myself; I had not one word, one phrase, ready for my wife. My
brain was not working.
But without thinking of anything, I went downstairs to my wife. She was
in her room, in the same pink dressing-gown, and standing in the same
attitude as though screening her papers from me. On her face was an
expression of perplexity and irony, and it was evident that having heard
of my arrival, she had prepared herself not to cry, not to entreat me,
not to defend herself, as she had done the day before, but to laugh at
me, to answer me contemptuously, and to act with decision. Her face was
saying: "If that's how it is, good-bye."
"Natalie, I've not gone away," I said, "but it's not deception. I have
gone out of my mind; I've grown old, I'm ill, I've become a different
man--think as you like.... I've shaken off my old self with horror, with
horror; I despise him and am ashamed of him, and the new man who has
been in me since yesterday will not let me go away. Do not drive me
away, Natalie!"
She looked intently into my face and believed me, and there was a gleam
of uneasiness in her eyes. Enchanted by her presence, warmed by the
warmth of her room, I muttered as in delirium, holding out my hands to
her:
"I tell you, I have no one near to me but you. I have never for one
minute ceased to miss you, and only obstinate vanity prevented me from
owning it. The past, when we lived as husband and wife, cannot be
brought back, and there's no need; but make me your servant, take all my
property, and give it away to any one you like. I am at peace, Natalie,
I am content.... I am at peace."
My wife, looking intently and with curiosity into my face, suddenly
uttered a faint cry, burst into tears, and ran into the next room. I
went upstairs to my own storey.
An hour later I was sitting at my table, writing my "History of
Railways," and the starving peasants did not now hinder me from doing
so. Now I feel no uneasiness. Neither the scenes of disorder which I saw
when I went the round of the huts at Pestrovo with my wife and Sobol the
other day, nor malignant rumours, nor the mistakes of the people around
me, nor old age close upon me--nothing disturbs me. Just as the flying
bullets do not hinder soldiers from talking of their own affairs, eating
and cleaning their boots, so the starving peasants do not hinder me from
sleeping quietly and looking after my personal affairs. In my house and
far around it there is in full swing the work which Dr. Sobol calls "an
orgy of philanthropy." My wife often comes up to me and looks about my
rooms uneasily, as though looking for what more she can give to the
starving peasants "to justify her existence," and I see that, thanks to
her, there will soon be nothing of our property left and we shall be
poor; but that does not trouble me, and I smile at her gaily. What will
happen in the future I don't know.
DIFFICULT PEOPLE
YEVGRAF IVANOVITCH SHIRYAEV, a small farmer, whose father, a parish
priest, now deceased, had received a gift of three hundred acres of land
from Madame Kuvshinnikov, a general's widow, was standing in a corner
before a copper washing-stand, washing his hands. As usual, his face
looked anxious and ill-humoured, and his beard was uncombed.
"What weather!" he said. "It's not weather, but a curse laid upon us.
It's raining again!"
He grumbled on, while his family sat waiting at table for him to have
finished washing his hands before beginning dinner. Fedosya Semyonovna,
his wife, his son Pyotr, a student, his eldest daughter Varvara, and
three small boys, had been sitting waiting a long time. The boys--Kolka,
Vanka, and Arhipka--grubby, snub-nosed little fellows with chubby faces
and tousled hair that wanted cutting, moved their chairs impatiently,
while their elders sat without stirring, and apparently did not care
whether they ate their dinner or waited....
As though trying their patience, Shiryaev deliberately dried his hands,
deliberately said his prayer, and sat down to the table without hurrying
himself. Cabbage-soup was served immediately. The sound of carpenters'
axes (Shiryaev was having a new barn built) and the laughter of Fomka,
their labourer, teasing the turkey, floated in from the courtyard.
Big, sparse drops of rain pattered on the window.
Pyotr, a round-shouldered student in spectacles, kept exchanging glances
with his mother as he ate his dinner. Several times he laid down his
spoon and cleared his throat, meaning to begin to speak, but after an
intent look at his father he fell to eating again. At last, when the
porridge had been served, he cleared his throat resolutely and said:
"I ought to go tonight by the evening train. I ought to have gone
before; I have missed a fortnight as it is. The lectures begin on the
first of September."
"Well, go," Shiryaev assented; "why are you lingering on here? Pack up
and go, and good luck to you."
A minute passed in silence.
"He must have money for the journey, Yevgraf Ivanovitch," the mother
observed in a low voice.
"Money? To be sure, you can't go without money. Take it at once, since
you need it. You could have had it long ago!"
The student heaved a faint sigh and looked with relief at his mother.
Deliberately Shiryaev took a pocket-book out of his coat-pocket and put
on his spectacles.
"How much do you want?" he asked.
"The fare to Moscow is eleven roubles forty-two kopecks...."
"Ah, money, money!" sighed the father. (He always sighed when he saw
money, even when he was receiving it.) "Here are twelve roubles for you.
You will have change out of that which will be of use to you on the
journey."
"Thank you."
After waiting a little, the student said:
"I did not get lessons quite at first last year. I don't know how it
will be this year; most likely it will take me a little time to find
work. I ought to ask you for fifteen roubles for my lodging and dinner."
Shiryaev thought a little and heaved a sigh.
"You will have to make ten do," he said. "Here, take it."
The student thanked him. He ought to have asked him for something more,
for clothes, for lecture fees, for books, but after an intent look at
his father he decided not to pester him further.
The mother, lacking in diplomacy and prudence, like all mothers, could
not restrain herself, and said:
"You ought to give him another six roubles, Yevgraf Ivanovitch, for a
pair of boots. Why, just see, how can he go to Moscow in such wrecks?"
"Let him take my old ones; they are still quite good."
"He must have trousers, anyway; he is a disgrace to look at."
And immediately after that a storm-signal showed itself, at the sight of
which all the family trembled.
Shiryaev's short, fat neck turned suddenly red as a beetroot. The colour
mounted slowly to his ears, from his ears to his temples, and by degrees
suffused his whole face. Yevgraf Ivanovitch shifted in his chair and
unbuttoned his shirt-collar to save himself from choking. He was
evidently struggling with the feeling that was mastering him. A
deathlike silence followed. The children held their breath. Fedosya
Semyonovna, as though she did not grasp what was happening to her
husband, went on:
"He is not a little boy now, you know; he is ashamed to go about without
clothes."