and is a long time coughing and taking off his things. Yegor announces a
student. I tell him to ask him in. A minute later a young man of
agreeable appearance comes in. For the last year he and I have been on
strained relations; he answers me disgracefully at the examinations, and
I mark him one. Every year I have some seven such hopefuls whom, to
express it in the students' slang, I "chivy" or "floor." Those of them
who fail in their examination through incapacity or illness usually bear
their cross patiently and do not haggle with me; those who come to the
house and haggle with me are always youths of sanguine temperament,
broad natures, whose failure at examinations spoils their appetites and
hinders them from visiting the opera with their usual regularity. I let
the first class off easily, but the second I chivy through a whole year.
"Sit down," I say to my visitor; "what have you to tell me?"
"Excuse me, professor, for troubling you," he begins, hesitating, and
not looking me in the face. "I would not have ventured to trouble you if
it had not been... I have been up for your examination five times, and
have been ploughed.... I beg you, be so good as to mark me for a pass,
because..."
The argument which all the sluggards bring forward on their own behalf
is always the same; they have passed well in all their subjects and have
only come to grief in mine, and that is the more surprising because they
have always been particularly interested in my subject and knew it so
well; their failure has always been entirely owing to some
incomprehensible misunderstanding.
"Excuse me, my friend," I say to the visitor; "I cannot mark you for a
pass. Go and read up the lectures and come to me again. Then we shall
see."
A pause. I feel an impulse to torment the student a little for liking
beer and the opera better than science, and I say, with a sigh:
"To my mind, the best thing you can do now is to give up medicine
altogether. If, with your abilities, you cannot succeed in passing the
examination, it's evident that you have neither the desire nor the
vocation for a doctor's calling."
The sanguine youth's face lengthens.
"Excuse me, professor," he laughs, "but that would be odd of me, to say
the least of it. After studying for five years, all at once to give it
up."
"Oh, well! Better to have lost your five years than have to spend the
rest of your life in doing work you do not care for."
But at once I feel sorry for him, and I hasten to add:
"However, as you think best. And so read a little more and come again."
"When?" the idle youth asks in a hollow voice.
"When you like. Tomorrow if you like."
And in his good-natured eyes I read:
"I can come all right, but of course you will plough me again, you
beast!"
"Of course," I say, "you won't know more science for going in for my
examination another fifteen times, but it is training your character,
and you must be thankful for that."
Silence follows. I get up and wait for my visitor to go, but he stands
and looks towards the window, fingers his beard, and thinks. It grows
boring.
The sanguine youth's voice is pleasant and mellow, his eyes are clever
and ironical, his face is genial, though a little bloated from frequent
indulgence in beer and overlong lying on the sofa; he looks as though he
could tell me a lot of interesting things about the opera, about his
affairs of the heart, and about comrades whom he likes. Unluckily, it is
not the thing to discuss these subjects, or else I should have been glad
to listen to him.
"Professor, I give you my word of honour that if you mark me for a pass
I... I'll..."
As soon as we reach the "word of honour" I wave my hands and sit down to
the table. The student ponders a minute longer, and says dejectedly:
"In that case, good-bye... I beg your pardon."
"Good-bye, my friend. Good luck to you."
He goes irresolutely into the hall, slowly puts on his outdoor things,
and, going out into the street, probably ponders for some time longer;
unable to think of anything, except "old devil," inwardly addressed to
me, he goes into a wretched restaurant to dine and drink beer, and then
home to bed. "Peace be to thy ashes, honest toiler."
A third ring at the bell. A young doctor, in a pair of new black
trousers, gold spectacles, and of course a white tie, walks in. He
introduces himself. I beg him to be seated, and ask what I can do for
him. Not without emotion, the young devotee of science begins telling me
that he has passed his examination as a doctor of medicine, and that he
has now only to write his dissertation. He would like to work with me
under my guidance, and he would be greatly obliged to me if I would give
him a subject for his dissertation.
"Very glad to be of use to you, colleague," I say, "but just let us come
to an understanding as to the meaning of a dissertation. That word is
taken to mean a composition which is a product of independent creative
effort. Is that not so? A work written on another man's subject and
under another man's guidance is called something different...."
The doctor says nothing. I fly into a rage and jump up from my seat.
"Why is it you all come to me?" I cry angrily. "Do I keep a shop? I
don't deal in subjects. For the thousand and oneth time I ask you all to
leave me in peace! Excuse my brutality, but I am quite sick of it!"
The doctor remains silent, but a faint flush is apparent on his cheek-
bones. His face expresses a profound reverence for my fame and my
learning, but from his eyes I can see he feels a contempt for my voice,
my pitiful figure, and my nervous gesticulation. I impress him in my
anger as a queer fish.
"I don't keep a shop," I go on angrily. "And it is a strange thing! Why
don't you want to be independent? Why have you such a distaste for
independence?"
I say a great deal, but he still remains silent. By degrees I calm down,
and of course give in. The doctor gets a subject from me for his theme
not worth a halfpenny, writes under my supervision a dissertation of no
use to any one, with dignity defends it in a dreary discussion, and
receives a degree of no use to him.
The rings at the bell may follow one another endlessly, but I will
confine my description here to four of them. The bell rings for the
fourth time, and I hear familiar footsteps, the rustle of a dress, a
dear voice....
Eighteen years ago a colleague of mine, an oculist, died leaving a
little daughter Katya, a child of seven, and sixty thousand roubles. In
his will he made me the child's guardian. Till she was ten years old
Katya lived with us as one of the family, then she was sent to a
boarding-school, and only spent the summer holidays with us. I never had
time to look after her education. I only superintended it at leisure
moments, and so I can say very little about her childhood.
The first thing I remember, and like so much in remembrance, is the
extraordinary trustfulness with which she came into our house and let
herself be treated by the doctors, a trustfulness which was always
shining in her little face. She would sit somewhere out of the way, with
her face tied up, invariably watching something with attention; whether
she watched me writing or turning over the pages of a book, or watched
my wife bustling about, or the cook scrubbing a potato in the kitchen,
or the dog playing, her eyes invariably expressed the same thought--that
is, "Everything that is done in this world is nice and sensible." She
was curious, and very fond of talking to me. Sometimes she would sit at
the table opposite me, watching my movements and asking questions. It
interested her to know what I was reading, what I did at the University,
whether I was not afraid of the dead bodies, what I did with my salary.
"Do the students fight at the University?" she would ask.
"They do, dear."
"And do you make them go down on their knees?"
"Yes, I do."
And she thought it funny that the students fought and I made them go
down on their knees, and she laughed. She was a gentle, patient, good
child. It happened not infrequently that I saw something taken away from
her, saw her punished without reason, or her curiosity repressed; at
such times a look of sadness was mixed with the invariable expression of
trustfulness on her face--that was all. I did not know how to take her
part; only when I saw her sad I had an inclination to draw her to me and
to commiserate her like some old nurse: "My poor little orphan one!"
I remember, too, that she was fond of fine clothes and of sprinkling
herself with scent. In that respect she was like me. I, too, am fond of
pretty clothes and nice scent.
I regret that I had not time nor inclination to watch over the rise and
development of the passion which took complete possession of Katya when
she was fourteen or fifteen. I mean her passionate love for the theatre.
When she used to come from boarding-school and stay with us for the
summer holidays, she talked of nothing with such pleasure and such
warmth as of plays and actors. She bored us with her continual talk of
the theatre. My wife and children would not listen to her. I was the
only one who had not the courage to refuse to attend to her. When she
had a longing to share her transports, she used to come into my study
and say in an imploring tone:
"Nikolay Stepanovitch, do let me talk to you about the theatre!"
I pointed to the clock, and said:
"I'll give you half an hour--begin."
Later on she used to bring with her dozens of portraits of actors and
actresses which she worshipped; then she attempted several times to take
part in private theatricals, and the upshot of it all was that when she
left school she came to me and announced that she was born to be an
actress.
I had never shared Katya's inclinations for the theatre. To my mind, if
a play is good there is no need to trouble the actors in order that it
may make the right impression; it is enough to read it. If the play is
poor, no acting will make it good.
In my youth I often visited the theatre, and now my family takes a box
twice a year and carries me off for a little distraction. Of course,
that is not enough to give me the right to judge of the theatre. In my
opinion the theatre has become no better than it was thirty or forty
years ago. Just as in the past, I can never find a glass of clean water
in the corridors or foyers of the theatre. Just as in the past, the
attendants fine me twenty kopecks for my fur coat, though there is
nothing reprehensible in wearing a warm coat in winter. As in the past,
for no sort of reason, music is played in the intervals, which adds
something new and uncalled-for to the impression made by the play. As in
the past, men go in the intervals and drink spirits in the buffet. If no
progress can be seen in trifles, I should look for it in vain in what is
more important. When an actor wrapped from head to foot in stage
traditions and conventions tries to recite a simple ordinary speech, "To
be or not to be," not simply, but invariably with the accompaniment of
hissing and convulsive movements all over his body, or when he tries to
convince me at all costs that Tchatsky, who talks so much with fools and
is so fond of folly, is a very clever man, and that "Woe from Wit" is
not a dull play, the stage gives me the same feeling of conventionality
which bored me so much forty years ago when I was regaled with the
classical howling and beating on the breast. And every time I come out
of the theatre more conservative than I go in.
The sentimental and confiding public may be persuaded that the stage,
even in its present form, is a school; but any one who is familiar with
a school in its true sense will not be caught with that bait. I cannot
say what will happen in fifty or a hundred years, but in its actual
condition the theatre can serve only as an entertainment. But this
entertainment is too costly to be frequently enjoyed. It robs the state
of thousands of healthy and talented young men and women, who, if they
had not devoted themselves to the theatre, might have been good doctors,
farmers, schoolmistresses, officers; it robs the public of the evening
hours--the best time for intellectual work and social intercourse. I say
nothing of the waste of money and the moral damage to the spectator when
he sees murder, fornication, or false witness unsuitably treated on the
stage.
Katya was of an entirely different opinion. She assured me that the
theatre, even in its present condition, was superior to the lecture-
hall, to books, or to anything in the world. The stage was a power that
united in itself all the arts, and actors were missionaries. No art nor
science was capable of producing so strong and so certain an effect on
the soul of man as the stage, and it was with good reason that an actor
of medium quality enjoys greater popularity than the greatest savant or
artist. And no sort of public service could provide such enjoyment and
gratification as the theatre.
And one fine day Katya joined a troupe of actors, and went off, I
believe to Ufa, taking away with her a good supply of money, a store of
rainbow hopes, and the most aristocratic views of her work.
Her first letters on the journey were marvellous. I read them, and was
simply amazed that those small sheets of paper could contain so much
youth, purity of spirit, holy innocence, and at the same time subtle and
apt judgments which would have done credit to a fine masculine
intellect. It was more like a rapturous paean of praise she sent me than
a mere description of the Volga, the country, the towns she visited, her
companions, her failures and successes; every sentence was fragrant with
that confiding trustfulness I was accustomed to read in her face--and at
the same time there were a great many grammatical mistakes, and there
was scarcely any punctuation at all.
Before six months had passed I received a highly poetical and
enthusiastic letter beginning with the words, "I have come to love..."
This letter was accompanied by a photograph representing a young man
with a shaven face, a wide-brimmed hat, and a plaid flung over his
shoulder. The letters that followed were as splendid as before, but now
commas and stops made their appearance in them, the grammatical mistakes
disappeared, and there was a distinctly masculine flavour about them.
Katya began writing to me how splendid it would be to build a great
theatre somewhere on the Volga, on a cooperative system, and to attract
to the enterprise the rich merchants and the steamer owners; there would
be a great deal of money in it; there would be vast audiences; the
actors would play on co-operative terms.... Possibly all this was really
excellent, but it seemed to me that such schemes could only originate
from a man's mind.
However that may have been, for a year and a half everything seemed to
go well: Katya was in love, believed in her work, and was happy; but
then I began to notice in her letters unmistakable signs of falling off.
It began with Katya's complaining of her companions--this was the first
and most ominous symptom; if a young scientific or literary man begins
his career with bitter complaints of scientific and literary men, it is
a sure sign that he is worn out and not fit for his work. Katya wrote to
me that her companions did not attend the rehearsals and never knew
their parts; that one could see in every one of them an utter disrespect
for the public in the production of absurd plays, and in their behaviour
on the stage; that for the benefit of the Actors' Fund, which they only
talked about, actresses of the serious drama demeaned themselves by
singing chansonettes, while tragic actors sang comic songs making fun of
deceived husbands and the pregnant condition of unfaithful wives, and so
on. In fact, it was amazing that all this had not yet ruined the
provincial stage, and that it could still maintain itself on such a
rotten and unsubstantial footing.
In answer I wrote Katya a long and, I must confess, a very boring
letter. Among other things, I wrote to her:
"I have more than once happened to converse with old actors, very worthy
men, who showed a friendly disposition towards me; from my conversations
with them I could understand that their work was controlled not so much
by their own intelligence and free choice as by fashion and the mood of
the public. The best of them had had to play in their day in tragedy, in
operetta, in Parisian farces, and in extravaganzas, and they always
seemed equally sure that they were on the right path and that they were
of use. So, as you see, the cause of the evil must be sought, not in the
actors, but, more deeply, in the art itself and in the attitude of the
whole of society to it."
This letter of mine only irritated Katya. She answered me:
"You and I are singing parts out of different operas. I wrote to you,
not of the worthy men who showed a friendly disposition to you, but of a
band of knaves who have nothing worthy about them. They are a horde of
savages who have got on the stage simply because no one would have taken
them elsewhere, and who call themselves artists simply because they are
impudent. There are numbers of dull-witted creatures, drunkards,
intriguing schemers and slanderers, but there is not one person of
talent among them. I cannot tell you how bitter it is to me that the art
I love has fallen into the hands of people I detest; how bitter it is
that the best men look on at evil from afar, not caring to come closer,
and, instead of intervening, write ponderous commonplaces and utterly
useless sermons...." And so on, all in the same style.
A little time passed, and I got this letter: "I have been brutally
deceived. I cannot go on living. Dispose of my money as you think best.
I loved you as my father and my only friend. Good-bye."
It turned out that he, too, belonged to the "horde of savages." Later
on, from certain hints, I gathered that there had been an attempt at
suicide. I believe Katya tried to poison herself. I imagine that she
must have been seriously ill afterwards, as the next letter I got was
from Yalta, where she had most probably been sent by the doctors. Her
last letter contained a request to send her a thousand roubles to Yalta
as quickly as possible, and ended with these words:
"Excuse the gloominess of this letter; yesterday I buried my child."
After spending about a year in the Crimea, she returned home.
She had been about four years on her travels, and during those four
years, I must confess, I had played a rather strange and unenviable part
in regard to her. When in earlier days she had told me she was going on
the stage, and then wrote to me of her love; when she was periodically
overcome by extravagance, and I continually had to send her first one
and then two thousand roubles; when she wrote to me of her intention of
suicide, and then of the death of her baby, every time I lost my head,
and all my sympathy for her sufferings found no expression except that,
after prolonged reflection, I wrote long, boring letters which I might
just as well not have written. And yet I took a father's place with her
and loved her like a daughter!
Now Katya is living less than half a mile off. She has taken a flat of
five rooms, and has installed herself fairly comfortably and in the
taste of the day. If any one were to undertake to describe her
surroundings, the most characteristic note in the picture would be
indolence. For the indolent body there are soft lounges, soft stools;
for indolent feet soft rugs; for indolent eyes faded, dingy, or flat
colours; for the indolent soul the walls are hung with a number of cheap
fans and trivial pictures, in which the originality of the execution is
more conspicuous than the subject; and the room contains a multitude of
little tables and shelves filled with utterly useless articles of no
value, and shapeless rags in place of curtains.... All this, together
with the dread of bright colours, of symmetry, and of empty space, bears
witness not only to spiritual indolence, but also to a corruption of
natural taste. For days together Katya lies on the lounge reading,
principally novels and stories. She only goes out of the house once a
day, in the afternoon, to see me.
I go on working while Katya sits silent not far from me on the sofa,
wrapping herself in her shawl, as though she were cold. Either because I
find her sympathetic or because I was used to her frequent visits when
she was a little girl, her presence does not prevent me from
concentrating my attention. From time to time I mechanically ask her
some question; she gives very brief replies; or, to rest for a minute, I
turn round and watch her as she looks dreamily at some medical journal
or review. And at such moments I notice that her face has lost the old
look of confiding trustfulness. Her expression now is cold, apathetic,
and absent-minded, like that of passengers who had to wait too long for
a train. She is dressed, as in old days, simply and beautifully, but
carelessly; her dress and her hair show visible traces of the sofas and
rocking-chairs in which she spends whole days at a stretch. And she has
lost the curiosity she had in old days. She has ceased to ask me
questions now, as though she had experienced everything in life and
looked for nothing new from it.
Towards four o'clock there begins to be sounds of movement in the hall
and in the drawing-room. Liza has come back from the Conservatoire, and
has brought some girl-friends in with her. We hear them playing on the
piano, trying their voices and laughing; in the dining-room Yegor is
laying the table, with the clatter of crockery.
"Good-bye," said Katya. "I won't go in and see your people today. They
must excuse me. I haven't time. Come and see me."
While I am seeing her to the door, she looks me up and down grimly, and
says with vexation:
"You are getting thinner and thinner! Why don't you consult a doctor?
I'll call at Sergey Fyodorovitch's and ask him to have a look at you."
"There's no need, Katya."
"I can't think where your people's eyes are! They are a nice lot, I must
say!"
She puts on her fur coat abruptly, and as she does so two or three
hairpins drop unnoticed on the floor from her carelessly arranged hair.
She is too lazy and in too great a hurry to do her hair up; she
carelessly stuffs the falling curls under her hat, and goes away.
When I go into the dining-room my wife asks me:
"Was Katya with you just now? Why didn't she come in to see us? It's
really strange...."
"Mamma," Liza says to her reproachfully, "let her alone, if she doesn't
want to. We are not going down on our knees to her."
"It's very neglectful, anyway. To sit for three hours in the study
without remembering our existence! But of course she must do as she
likes."
Varya and Liza both hate Katya. This hatred is beyond my comprehension,
and probably one would have to be a woman in order to understand it. I
am ready to stake my life that of the hundred and fifty young men I see
every day in the lecture-theatre, and of the hundred elderly ones I meet
every week, hardly one could be found capable of understanding their
hatred and aversion for Katya's past--that is, for her having been a
mother without being a wife, and for her having had an illegitimate
child; and at the same time I cannot recall one woman or girl of my
acquaintance who would not consciously or unconsciously harbour such
feelings. And this is not because woman is purer or more virtuous than
man: why, virtue and purity are not very different from vice if they are
not free from evil feeling. I attribute this simply to the backwardness
of woman. The mournful feeling of compassion and the pang of conscience
experienced by a modern man at the sight of suffering is, to my mind,
far greater proof of culture and moral elevation than hatred and
aversion. Woman is as tearful and as coarse in her feelings now as she
was in the Middle Ages, and to my thinking those who advise that she
should be educated like a man are quite right.
My wife also dislikes Katya for having been an actress, for ingratitude,
for pride, for eccentricity, and for the numerous vices which one woman
can always find in another.