"It shows the utmost disrespect for another man's time and work. In
England such a person would not earn a farthing, he would die of hunger.
You wait a minute, when you do come . . . ."
And feeling a craving to vent his wrath and impatience upon someone, the
man of learning goes to the door leading to his wife's room and knocks.
"Listen, Katya," he says in an indignant voice. "If you see Pyotr
Danilitch, tell him that decent people don't do such things. It's
abominable! He recommends a secretary, and does not know the sort of man
he is recommending! The wretched boy is two or three hours late with
unfailing regularity every day. Do you call that a secretary? Those two
or three hours are more precious to me than two or three years to other
people. When he does come I will swear at him like a dog, and won't pay
him and will kick him out. It's no use standing on ceremony with people
like that!"
"You say that every day, and yet he goes on coming and coming."
"But to-day I have made up my mind. I have lost enough through him. You
must excuse me, but I shall swear at him like a cabman."
At last a ring is heard. The man of learning makes a grave face; drawing
himself up, and, throwing back his head, he goes into the entry. There
his amanuensis Ivan Matveyitch, a young man of eighteen, with a face
oval as an egg and no moustache, wearing a shabby, mangy overcoat and no
goloshes, is already standing by the hatstand. He is in breathless
haste, and scrupulously wipes his huge clumsy boots on the doormat,
trying as he does so to conceal from the maidservant a hole in his boot
through which a white sock is peeping. Seeing the man of learning he
smiles with that broad, prolonged, somewhat foolish smile which is seen
only on the faces of children or very good-natured people.
"Ah, good evening!" he says, holding out a big wet hand. "Has your sore
throat gone?"
"Ivan Matveyitch," says the man of learning in a shaking voice, stepping
back and clasping his hands together. "Ivan Matveyitch."
Then he dashes up to the amanuensis, clutches him by the shoulders, and
begins feebly shaking him.
"What a way to treat me!" he says with despair in his voice. "You
dreadful, horrid fellow, what a way to treat me! Are you laughing at me,
are you jeering at me? Eh?"
Judging from the smile which still lingered on his face Ivan Matveyitch
had expected a very different reception, and so, seeing the man of
learning's countenance eloquent of indignation, his oval face grows
longer than ever, and he opens his mouth in amazement.
"What is . . . what is it?" he asks.
"And you ask that?" the man of learning clasps his hands. "You know how
precious time is to me, and you are so late. You are two hours late! . .
. Have you no fear of God?"
"I haven't come straight from home," mutters Ivan Matveyitch, untying
his scarf irresolutely. "I have been at my aunt's name-day party, and my
aunt lives five miles away. . . . If I had come straight from home, then
it would have been a different thing."
"Come, reflect, Ivan Matveyitch, is there any logic in your conduct?
Here you have work to do, work at a fixed time, and you go flying off
after name-day parties and aunts! But do make haste and undo your
wretched scarf! It's beyond endurance, really!"
The man of learning dashes up to the amanuensis again and helps him to
disentangle his scarf.
"You are done up like a peasant woman, . . . Come along, . . . Please
make haste!"
Blowing his nose in a dirty, crumpled-up handkerchief and pulling down
his grey reefer jacket, Ivan Matveyitch goes through the hall and the
drawing-room to the study. There a place and paper and even cigarettes
had been put ready for him long ago.
"Sit down, sit down," the man of learning urges him on, rubbing his
hands impatiently. "You are an unsufferable person. . . . You know the
work has to be finished by a certain time, and then you are so late. One
is forced to scold you. Come, write, . . . Where did we stop?"
Ivan Matveyitch smooths his bristling cropped hair and takes up his pen.
The man of learning walks up and down the room, concentrates himself,
and begins to dictate:
"The fact is . . . comma . . . that so to speak fundamental forms . . .
have you written it? . . . forms are conditioned entirely by the
essential nature of those principles . . . comma . . . which find in
them their expression and can only be embodied in them . . . . New line,
. . . There's a stop there, of course. . . . More independence is found
. . . is found . . . by the forms which have not so much a political . .
. comma . . . as a social character . ."
"The high-school boys have a different uniform now . . . a grey one,"
said Ivan Matveyitch, "when I was at school it was better: they used to
wear regular uniforms."
"Oh dear, write please!" says the man of learning wrathfully. "Character
. . . have you written it? Speaking of the forms relating to the
organization . . . of administrative functions, and not to the
regulation of the life of the people . . . comma . . . it cannot be said
that they are marked by the nationalism of their forms . . . the last
three words in inverted commas. . . . Aie, aie . . . tut, tut . . . so
what did you want to say about the high school?"
"That they used to wear a different uniform in my time."
"Aha! . . . indeed, . . . Is it long since you left the high school?"
"But I told you that yesterday. It is three years since I left school. .
. . I left in the fourth class."
"And why did you give up high school?" asks the man of learning, looking
at Ivan Matveyitch's writing.
"Oh, through family circumstances."
"Must I speak to you again, Ivan Matveyitch? When will you get over your
habit of dragging out the lines? There ought not to be less than forty
letters in a line."
"What, do you suppose I do it on purpose?" says Ivan Matveyitch,
offended. "There are more than forty letters in some of the other lines.
. . . You count them. And if you think I don't put enough in the line,
you can take something off my pay."
"Oh dear, that's not the point. You have no delicacy, really. . . . At
the least thing you drag in money. The great thing is to be exact, Ivan
Matveyitch, to be exact is the great thing. You ought to train yourself
to be exact."
The maidservant brings in a tray with two glasses of tea on it, and a
basket of rusks. . . . Ivan Matveyitch takes his glass awkwardly with
both hands, and at once begins drinking it. The tea is too hot. To avoid
burning his mouth Ivan Matveyitch tries to take a tiny sip. He eats one
rusk, then a second, then a third, and, looking sideways, with
embarrassment, at the man of learning, timidly stretches after a fourth.
. . . The noise he makes in swallowing, the relish with which he smacks
his lips, and the expression of hungry greed in his raised eyebrows
irritate the man of learning.
"Make haste and finish, time is precious."
"You dictate, I can drink and write at the same time. . . . I must
confess I was hungry."
"I should think so after your walk!"
"Yes, and what wretched weather! In our parts there is a scent of spring
by now. . . . There are puddles everywhere; the snow is melting."
"You are a southerner, I suppose?"
"From the Don region. . . . It's quite spring with us by March. Here it
is frosty, everyone's in a fur coat, . . . but there you can see the
grass . . . it's dry everywhere, and one can even catch tarantulas."
"And what do you catch tarantulas for?"
"Oh! . . . to pass the time . . ." says Ivan Matveyitch, and he sighs.
"It's fun catching them. You fix a bit of pitch on a thread, let it down
into their hole and begin hitting the tarantula on the back with the
pitch, and the brute gets cross, catches hold of the pitch with his
claws, and gets stuck. . . . And what we used to do with them! We used
to put a basinful of them together and drop a bihorka in with them."
"What is a bihorka?"
"That's another spider, very much the same as a tarantula. In a fight
one of them can kill a hundred tarantulas."
"H'm! . . . But we must write, . . . Where did we stop?"
The man of learning dictates another twenty lines, then sits plunged in
meditation.
Ivan Matveyitch, waiting while the other cogitates, sits and, craning
his neck, puts the collar of his shirt to rights. His tie will not set
properly, the stud has come out, and the collar keeps coming apart.
"H'm! . . ." says the man of learning. "Well, haven't you found a job
yet, Ivan Matveyitch?"
"No. And how is one to find one? I am thinking, you know, of
volunteering for the army. But my father advises my going into a
chemist's."
"H'm! . . . But it would be better for you to go into the university.
The examination is difficult, but with patience and hard work you could
get through. Study, read more. . . . Do you read much?"
"Not much, I must own . . ." says Ivan Matveyitch, lighting a cigarette.
"Have you read Turgenev?"
"N-no. . . ."
"And Gogol?"
"Gogol. H'm! . . . Gogol. . . . No, I haven't read him!"
"Ivan Matveyitch! Aren't you ashamed? Aie! aie! You are such a nice
fellow, so much that is original in you . . . you haven't even read
Gogol! You must read him! I will give you his works! It's essential to
read him! We shall quarrel if you don't!"
Again a silence follows. The man of learning meditates, half reclining
on a soft lounge, and Ivan Matveyitch, leaving his collar in peace,
concentrates his whole attention on his boots. He has not till then
noticed that two big puddles have been made by the snow melting off his
boots on the floor. He is ashamed.
"I can't get on to-day . . ." mutters the man of learning. "I suppose
you are fond of catching birds, too, Ivan Matveyitch?"
"That's in autumn, . . . I don't catch them here, but there at home I
always did."
"To be sure . . . very good. But we must write, though."
The man of learning gets up resolutely and begins dictating, but after
ten lines sits down on the lounge again.
"No. . . . Perhaps we had better put it off till to-morrow morning," he
says. "Come to-morrow morning, only come early, at nine o'clock. God
preserve you from being late!"
Ivan Matveyitch lays down his pen, gets up from the table and sits in
another chair. Five minutes pass in silence, and he begins to feel it is
time for him to go, that he is in the way; but in the man of learning's
study it is so snug and light and warm, and the impression of the nice
rusks and sweet tea is still so fresh that there is a pang at his heart
at the mere thought of home. At home there is poverty, hunger, cold, his
grumbling father, scoldings, and here it is so quiet and unruffled, and
interest even is taken in his tarantulas and birds.
The man of learning looks at his watch and takes up a book.
"So you will give me Gogol?' says Ivan Matveyitch, getting up.
"Yes, yes! But why are you in such a hurry, my dear boy? Sit down and
tell me something . . ."
Ivan Matveyitch sits down and smiles broadly. Almost every evening he
sits in this study and always feels something extraordinarily soft,
attracting him, as it were akin, in the voice and the glance of the man
of learning. There are moments when he even fancies that the man of
learning is becoming attached to him, used to him, and that if he scolds
him for being late, it's simply because he misses his chatter about
tarantulas and how they catch goldfinches on the Don.
ZINOTCHKA
THE party of sportsmen spent the night in a peasant's hut on some newly
mown hay. The moon peeped in at the window; from the street came the
mournful wheezing of a concertina; from the hay came a sickly sweet,
faintly troubling scent. The sportsmen talked about dogs, about women,
about first love, and about snipe. After all the ladies of their
acquaintance had been picked to pieces, and hundreds of stories had been
told, the stoutest of the sportsmen, who looked in the darkness like a
haycock, and who talked in the mellow bass of a staff officer, gave a
loud yawn and said:
"It is nothing much to be loved; the ladies are created for the purpose
of loving us men. But, tell me, has any one of you fellows been hated-
passionately, furiously hated? Has any one of you watched the ecstasies
of hatred? Eh?"
No answer followed.
"Has no one, gentlemen?" asked the staff officer's bass voice. "But I,
now, have been hated, hated by a pretty girl, and have been able to
study the symptoms of first hatred directed against myself. It was the
first, because it was something exactly the converse of first love. What
I am going to tell, however, happened when I knew nothing about love or
hate. I was eight at the time, but that made no difference; in this case
it was not he but she that mattered. Well, I beg your attention. One
fine summer evening, just before sunset, I was sitting in the nursery,
doing my lesson with my governess, Zinotchka, a very charming and
poetical creature who had left boarding school not long before.
Zinotchka looked absent-mindedly towards the window and said:
"'Yes. We breathe in oxygen; now tell me, Petya, what do we breathe
out?'
"'Carbonic acid gas,' I answered, looking towards the same window.
"'Right,' assented Zinotchka. 'Plants, on the contrary, breathe in
carbonic acid gas, and breathe out oxygen. Carbonic acid gas is
contained in seltzer water, and in the fumes from the samovar. . . . It
is a very noxious gas. Near Naples there is the so-called Cave of Dogs,
which contains carbonic acid gas; a dog dropped into it is suffocated
and dies.'
"This luckless Cave of Dogs near Naples is a chemical marvel beyond
which no governess ventures to go. Zinotchka always hotly maintained the
usefulness of natural science, but I doubt if she knew any chemistry
beyond this Cave.
"Well, she told me to repeat it. I repeated it. She asked me what was
meant by the horizon. I answered. And meantime, while we were ruminating
over the horizon and the Cave, in the yard below, my father was just
getting ready to go shooting. The dogs yapped, the trace horses shifted
from one leg to another impatiently and coquetted with the coachman, the
footman packed the waggonette with parcels and all sorts of things.
Beside the waggonette stood a brake in which my mother and sisters were
sitting to drive to a name-day party at the Ivanetskys'. No one was left
in the house but Zinotchka, me, and my eldest brother, a student, who
had toothache. You can imagine my envy and my boredom.
"'Well, what do we breathe in?' asked Zinotchka, looking at the window.
"'Oxygen. . .'
"'Yes. And the horizon is the name given to the place where it seems to
us as though the earth meets the sky.'
"Then the waggonette drove off, and after it the brake. . . . I saw
Zinotchka take a note out of her pocket, crumple it up convulsively and
press it to her temple, then she flushed crimson and looked at her
watch.
"'So, remember,' she said, 'that near Naples is the so-called Cave of
Dogs. . . .' She glanced at her watch again and went on: 'where the sky
seems to us to meet the earth. . . .'
"The poor girl in violent agitation walked about the room, and once more
glanced at her watch. There was another half-hour before the end of our
lesson.
"'Now arithmetic,' she said, breathing hard and turning over the pages
of the sum-book with a trembling hand. 'Come, you work out problem 325
and I . . . will be back directly.'
"She went out. I heard her scurry down the stairs, and then I saw her
dart across the yard in her blue dress and vanish through the garden
gate. The rapidity of her movements, the flush on her cheeks and her
excitement, aroused my curiosity. Where had she run, and what for? Being
intelligent beyond my years I soon put two and two together, and
understood it all: she had run into the garden, taking advantage of the
absence of my stern parents, to steal in among the raspberry bushes, or
to pick herself some cherries. If that were so, dash it all, I would go
and have some cherries too. I threw aside the sum-book and ran into the
garden. I ran to the cherry orchard, but she was not there. Passing by
the raspberries, the gooseberries, and the watchman's shanty, she
crossed the kitchen garden and reached the pond, pale, and starting at
every sound. I stole after her, and what I saw, my friends, was this. At
the edge of the pond, between the thick stumps of two old willows, stood
my elder brother, Sasha; one could not see from his face that he had
toothache. He looked towards Zinotchka as she approached him, and his
whole figure was lighted up by an expression of happiness as though by
sunshine. And Zinotchka, as though she were being driven into the Cave
of Dogs, and were being forced to breathe carbonic acid gas, walked
towards him, scarcely able to move one leg before the other, breathing
hard, with her head thrown back. . . . To judge from appearances she was
going to a rendezous for the first time in her life. But at last she
reached him. . . . For half a minute they gazed at each other in
silence, as though they could not believe their eyes. Thereupon some
force seemed to shove Zinotchka; she laid her hands on Sasha's shoulders
and let her head droop upon his waistcoat. Sasha laughed, muttered
something incoherent, and with the clumsiness of a man head over ears in
love, laid both hands on Zinotchka's face. And the weather, gentlemen,
was exquisite. . . . The hill behind which the sun was setting, the two
willows, the green bank, the sky-all together with Sasha and Zinotchka
were reflected in the pond . . . perfect stillness . . . you can imagine
it. Millions of butterflies with long whiskers gleamed golden above the
reeds; beyond the garden they were driving the cattle. In fact, it was a
perfect picture.
"Of all I had seen the only thing I understood was that Sasha was
kissing Zinotchka. That was improper. If maman heard of it they would
both catch it. Feeling for some reason ashamed I went back to the
nursery, not waiting for the end of the rendezvous. There I sat over the
sum-book, pondered and reflected. A triumphant smile strayed upon my
countenance. On one side it was agreeable to be the possessor of another
person's secret; on the other it was also very agreeable that such
authorities as Sasha and Zinotchka might at any moment be convicted by
me of ignorance of the social proprieties. Now they were in my power,
and their peace was entirely dependent on my magnanimity. I'd let them
know.
"When I went to bed, Zinotchka came into the nursery as usual to find
out whether I had dropped asleep without undressing and whether I had
said my prayers. I looked at her pretty, happy face and grinned. I was
bursting with my secret and itching to let it out. I had to drop a hint
and enjoy the effect.
"'I know,' I said, grinning. 'Gy-y.'
"'What do you know?'
"'Gy-y! I saw you near the willows kissing Sasha. I followed you and saw
it all.'
"Zinotchka started, flushed all over, and overwhelmed by 'my hint' she
sank down on the chair, on which stood a glass of water and a
candlestick.
"'I saw you . . . kissing . . .' I repeated, sniggering and enjoying her
confusion. 'Aha! I'll tell mamma!'
"Cowardly Zinotchka gazed at me intently, and convincing herself that I
really did know all about it, clutched my hand in despair and muttered
in a trembling whisper:
"'Petya, it is low. . . . I beg of you, for God's sake. . . . Be a man .
. . don't tell anyone. . . . Decent people don't spy . . . . It's low. .
. . I entreat you.'
"The poor girl was terribly afraid of my mother, a stern and virtuous
lady-that was one thing; and the second was that my grinning countenance
could not but outrage her first love so pure and poetical, and you can
imagine the state of her heart. Thanks to me, she did not sleep a wink
all night, and in the morning she appeared at breakfast with blue rings
round her eyes. When I met Sasha after breakfast I could not refrain
from grinning and boasting:
"'I know! I saw you yesterday kissing Mademoiselle Zina!'
"Sasha looked at me and said:
"'You are a fool.'
"He was not so cowardly as Zinotchka, and so my effect did not come off.
That provoked me to further efforts. If Sasha was not frightened it was
evident that he did not believe that I had seen and knew all about it;
wait a bit, I would show him.
"At our lessons before dinner Zinotchka did not look at me, and her
voice faltered. Instead of trying to scare me she tried to propitiate me
in every way, giving me full marks, and not complaining to my father of
my naughtiness. Being intelligent beyond my years I exploited her
secret: I did not learn my lessons, walked into the schoolroom on my
head, and said all sorts of rude things. In fact, if I had remained in
that vein till to-day I should have become a famous blackmailer. Well, a
week passed. Another person's secret irritated and fretted me like a
splinter in my soul. I longed at all costs to blurt it out and gloat
over the effect. And one day at dinner, when we had a lot of visitors, I
gave a stupid snigger, looked fiendishly at Zinotchka and said:
"'I know. Gy-y! I saw! . . .'
"'What do you know?' asked my mother.
"I looked still more fiendishly at Zinotchka and Sasha. You ought to
have seen how the girl flushed up, and how furious Sasha's eyes were! I
bit my tongue and did not go on. Zinotchka gradually turned pale,
clenched her teeth, and ate no more dinner. At our evening lessons that
day I noticed a striking change in Zinotchka's face. It looked sterner,
colder, as it were, more like marble, while her eyes gazed strangely
straight into my face, and I give you my word of honour I have never
seen such terrible, annihilating eyes, even in hounds when they overtake
the wolf. I understood their expression perfectly, when in the middle of
a lesson she suddenly clenched her teeth and hissed through them:
"'I hate you! Oh, you vile, loathsome creature, if you knew how I hate
you, how I detest your cropped head, your vulgar, prominent ears!'
"But at once she took fright and said:
"'I am not speaking to you, I am repeating a part out of a play. . . .'
"Then, my friends, at night I saw her come to my bedside and gaze a long
time into my face. She hated me passionately, and could not exist away
from me. The contemplation of my hated pug of a face had become a
necessity to her. I remember a lovely summer evening . . . with the
scent of hay, perfect stillness, and so on. The moon was shining. I was
walking up and down the avenue, thinking of cherry jam. Suddenly
Zinotchka, looking pale and lovely, came up to me, she caught hold of my
hand, and breathlessly began expressing herself:
"'Oh, how I hate you! I wish no one harm as I do you! Let me tell you
that! I want you to understand that!'
"You understand, moonlight, her pale face, breathless with passion, the
stillness . . . little pig as I was I actually enjoyed it. I listened to
her, looked at her eyes. . . . At first I liked it, and enjoyed the
novelty. Then I was suddenly seized with terror, I gave a scream, and
ran into the house at breakneck speed.
"I made up my mind that the best thing to do was to complain to maman.
And I did complain, mentioning incidentally how Sasha had kissed
Zinotchka. I was stupid, and did not know what would follow, or I should
have kept the secret to myself. . . . After hearing my story maman
flushed with indignation and said:
"'It is not your business to speak about that, you are still very young.
. . . But, what an example for children.'
"My maman was not only virtuous but diplomatic. To avoid a scandal she
did not get rid of Zinotchka at once, but set to work gradually,
systematically, to pave the way for her departure, as one does with
well-bred but intolerable people. I remember that when Zinotchka did
leave us the last glance she cast at the house was directed at the
window at which I was sitting, and I assure you, I remember that glance
to this day.
"Zinotchka soon afterwards became my brother's wife. She is the Zinaida
Nikolaevna whom you know. The next time I met her I was already an
ensign. In spite of all her efforts she could not recognize the hated
Petya in the ensign with his moustache, but still she did not treat me
quite like a relation. . . . And even now, in spite of my good-humoured
baldness, meek corpulence, and unassuming air, she still looks askance
at me, and feels put out when I go to see my brother. Hatred it seems
can no more be forgotten than love. . . .
"Tchoo! I hear the cock crowing! Good-night. Milord! Lie down!"
BAD WEATHER