strange to ourselves. One feels something quite particular, when the
audience booms like the sea behind the door. In thirty years I have not
grown used to this feeling, and I have it every morning. I button up my
frock-coat nervously, ask Nicolas unnecessary questions, get angry....
It is as though I were afraid; but it is not fear, but something else
which I cannot name nor describe.
Unnecessarily, I look at my watch and say:
"Well, it's time to go."
And we march in, in this order: Nicolas with the preparations or the
atlases in front, myself next, and after me, the cart-horse, modestly
hanging his head; or, if necessary, a corpse on a stretcher in front and
behind the corpse Nicolas and so on. The students rise when I appear,
then sit down and the noise of the sea is suddenly still. Calm begins.
I know what I will lecture about, but I know nothing of how I will
lecture, where I will begin and where I will end. There is not a single
sentence ready in my brain. But as soon as I glance at the audience,
sitting around me in an amphitheatre, and utter the stereotyped "In our
last lecture we ended with...." and the sentences fly out of my soul in
a long line--then it is full steam ahead. I speak with irresistible
speed, and with passion, and it seems as though no earthly power could
check the current of my speech. In order to lecture well, that is
without being wearisome and to the listener's profit, besides talent you
must have the knack of it and experience; you must have a clear idea
both of your own powers, of the people to whom you are lecturing, and of
the subject of your remarks. Moreover, you must be quick in the uptake,
keep a sharp eye open, and never for a moment lose your field of vision.
When he presents the composer's thought, a good conductor does twenty
things at once. He reads the score, waves his baton, watches the singer
makes a gesture now towards the drum, now to the double-bass, and so on.
It is the same with me when lecturing. I have some hundred and fifty
faces before me, quite unlike each other, and three hundred eyes staring
me straight in the face. My purpose is to conquer this many-headed
hydra. If I have a clear idea how far they are attending and how much
they are comprehending every minute while I am lecturing, then the hydra
is in my power. My other opponent is within me. This is the endless
variety of forms, phenomena and laws, and the vast number of ideas,
whether my own or others', which depend upon them. Every moment I must
be skilful enough to choose what is most important and necessary from
this enormous material, and just as swiftly as my speech flows to clothe
my thought in a form which will penetrate the hydra's understanding and
excite its attention. Besides I must watch carefully to see that my
thoughts shall not be presented as they have been accumulated, but in a
certain order, necessary for the correct composition of the picture
which I wish to paint. Further, I endeavour to make my speech literary,
my definitions brief and exact, my sentences as simple and elegant as
possible. Every moment I must hold myself in and remember that I have
only an hour and forty minutes to spend. In other words, it is a heavy
labour. At one and the same time you have to be a savant, a
schoolmaster, and an orator, and it is a failure if the orator triumphs
over the schoolmaster in you or the schoolmaster over the orator.
After lecturing for a quarter, for half an hour, I notice suddenly that
the students have begun to stare at the ceiling or Peter Ignatievich.
One will feel for his handkerchief, another settle himself comfortably,
another smile at his own thoughts. This means their attention is tried.
I must take steps. I seize the first opening and make a pun. All the
hundred and fifty faces have a broad smile, their eyes flash merrily,
and for a while you can hear the boom of the sea. I laugh too. Their
attention is refreshed and I can go on.
No sport, no recreation, no game ever gave me such delight as reading a
lecture. Only in a lecture could I surrender myself wholly to passion
and understand that inspiration is not a poet's fiction, but exists
indeed. And I do not believe that Hercules, even after the most
delightful of his exploits, felt such a pleasant weariness as I
experienced every time after a lecture.
This was in the past. Now at lectures I experience only torture. Not
half an hour passes before I begin to feel an invincible weakness in my
legs and shoulders. I sit down in my chair, but I am not used to lecture
sitting. In a moment I am up again, and lecture standing. Then I sit
down again. Inside my mouth is dry, my voice is hoarse, my head feels
dizzy. To hide my state from my audience I drink some water now and
then, cough, wipe my nose continually, as though I was troubled by a
cold, make inopportune puns, and finally announce the interval earlier
than I should. But chiefly I feel ashamed.
Conscience and reason tell me that the best thing I could do now is to
read my farewell lecture to the boys, give them my last word, bless them
and give up my place to someone younger and stronger than I. But, heaven
be my judge, I have not the courage to act up to my conscience.
Unfortunately, I am neither philosopher nor theologian. I know quite
well I have no more than six months to live; and it would seem that now
I ought to be mainly occupied with questions of the darkness beyond the
grave, and the visions which will visit my sleep in the earth. But
somehow my soul is not curious of these questions, though my mind grants
every atom of their importance. Now before my death it is just as it was
twenty or thirty years ago. Only science interests me.--When I take my
last breath I shall still believe that Science is the most important,
the most beautiful, the most necessary thing in the life of man; that
she has always been and always will be the highest manifestation of
love, and that by her alone will man triumph over nature and himself.
This faith is, perhaps, at bottom naive and unfair, but I am not to
blame if this and not another is my faith. To conquer this faith within
me is for me impossible.
But this is beside the point. I only ask that you should incline to my
weakness and understand that to tear a man who is more deeply concerned
with the destiny of a brain tissue than the final goal of creation away
from his rostrum and his students is like taking him and nailing him up
in a coffin without waiting until he is dead.
Because of my insomnia and the intense struggle with my increasing
weakness a strange thing happens inside me. In the middle of my lecture
tears rise to my throat, my eyes begin to ache, and I have a passionate
and hysterical desire to stretch out my hands and moan aloud. I want to
cry out that fate has doomed me, a famous man, to death; that in some
six months here in the auditorium another will be master. I want to cry
out that I am poisoned; that new ideas that I did not know before have
poisoned the last days of my life, and sting my brain incessantly like
mosquitoes. At that moment my position seems so terrible to me that I
want all my students to be terrified, to jump from their seats and rush
panic-stricken to the door, shrieking in despair.
It is not easy to live through such moments. II
After the lecture I sit at home and work. I read reviews, dissertations,
or prepare for the next lecture, and sometimes I write something. I work
with interruptions, since I have to receive visitors.
The bell rings. It is a friend who has come to talk over some business.
He enters with hat and stick. He holds them both in front of him and
says:
"Just a minute, a minute. Sit down, cher confrère. Only a word or two."
First we try to show each other that we are both extraordinarily polite
and very glad to see each other. I make him sit down in the chair, and
he makes me sit down; and then we touch each other's waists, and put our
hands on each other's buttons, as though we were feeling each other and
afraid to bum ourselves. We both laugh, though we say nothing funny.
Sitting down, we bend our heads together and begin to whisper to each
other. We must gild our conversation with such Chinese formalities as:
"You remarked most justly" or "I have already had the occasion to say."
We must giggle if either of us makes a pun, though it's a bad one. When
we have finished with the business, my friend gets up with a rush, waves
his hat towards my work, and begins to take his leave. We feel each
other once more and laugh. I accompany him down to the hall. There I
help my friend on with his coat, but he emphatically declines so great
an honour. Then, when Yegor opens the door my friend assures me that I
will catch cold, and I pretend to be ready to follow him into the
street. And when I finally return to my study my face keeps smiling
still, it must be from inertia.
A little later another ring. Someone enters the hall, spends a long time
taking off his coat and coughs. Yegor brings me word that a student has
come. I tell him to show him up. In a minute a pleasant-faced young man
appears. For a year we have been on these forced terms together. He
sends in abominable answers at examinations, and I mark him gamma. Every
year I have about seven of these people to whom, to use the students'
slang, "I give a plough" or "haul them through." Those of them who fail
because of stupidity or illness, usually bear their cross in patience
and do not bargain with me; only sanguine temperaments, "open natures,"
bargain with me and come to my house, people whose appetite is spoiled
or who are prevented from going regularly to the opera by a delay in
their examinations. With the first I am over-indulgent; the second kind
I keep on the run for a year.
"Sit down," I say to my guest. "What was it you wished to say?"
"Forgive me for troubling you, Professor...." he begins, stammering and
never looking me in the face. "I would not venture to trouble you
unless.... I was up for my examination before you for the fifth time ...
and I failed. I implore you to be kind, and give me a 'satis,'
because...."
The defence which all idlers make of themselves is always the same. They
have passed in every other subject with distinction, and failed only in
mine, which is all the more strange because they had always studied my
subject most diligently and know it thoroughly. They failed through some
inconceivable misunderstanding.
"Forgive me, my friend," I say to my guest. "But I can't give you a
'satis'--impossible. Go and read your lectures again, and then come. Then
we'll see."
Pause. I get a desire to torment the student a little, because he
prefers beer and the opera to science; and I say with a sigh:
"In my opinion, the best thing for you now is to give up the Faculty of
Medicine altogether. With your abilities, if you find it impossible to
pass the examination, then it seems you have neither the desire nor the
vocation to be a doctor."
My sanguine friend's face grows grave.
"Excuse me, Professor," he smiles, "but it would be strange, to say the
least, on my part. Studying medicine for five years and suddenly--to
throw it over."
"Yes, but it's better to waste five years than to spend your whole life
afterwards in an occupation which you dislike."
Immediately I begin to feel sorry for him and hasten to say:
"Well, do as you please. Read a little and come again."
"When?" the idler asks, dully.
"Whenever you like. To-morrow, even."
And I read in his pleasant eyes. "I can come again; but you'll send me
away again, you beast."
"Of course," I say, "you won't become more learned because you have to
come up to me fifteen times for examination; but this will form your
character. You must be thankful for that."
Silence. I rise and wait for my guest to leave. But he stands there,
looking at the window, pulling at his little beard and thinking. It
becomes tedious.
My sanguine friend has a pleasant, succulent voice, clever, amusing
eyes, a good-natured face, rather puffed by assiduity to beer and much
resting on the sofa. Evidently he could tell me many interesting things
about the opera, about his love affairs, about the friends he adores;
but, unfortunately, it is not the thing. And I would so eagerly listen!
"On my word of honour, Professor, if you give me a 'satis' I'll...."
As soon as it gets to "my word of honour," I wave my hands and sit down
to the table. The student thinks for a while and says, dejectedly:
"In that case, good-bye.... Forgive me!"
"Good-bye, my friend.... Good-bye!"
He walks irresolutely into the hall, slowly puts on his coat, and, when
he goes into the street, probably thinks again for a long while; having
excogitated nothing better than "old devil" for me, he goes to a cheap
restaurant to drink beer and dine, and then home to sleep. Peace be to
your ashes, honest labourer!
A third ring. Enters a young doctor in a new black suit, gold-rimmed
spectacles and the inevitable white necktie. He introduces himself. I
ask him to take a seat and inquire his business. The young priest of
science begins to tell me, not without agitation, that he passed his
doctor's examination this year, and now has only to write his
dissertation. He would like to work with me, under my guidance; and I
would do him a great kindness if I would suggest a subject for his
dissertation.
"I should be delighted to be of use to you, mon cher confrère," I say.
"But first of all, let us come to an agreement as to what is a
dissertation. Generally we understand by this, work produced as the
result of an independent creative power. Isn't that so? But a work
written on another's subject, under another's guidance, has a different
name."
The aspirant is silent. I fire up and jump out of my seat. "Why do you
all come to me? I can't understand," I cry out angrily. "Do I keep a
shop? I don't sell theses across the counter. For the one thousandth
time I ask you all to leave me alone. Forgive my rudeness, but I've got
tired of it at last!"
The aspirant is silent. Only, a tinge of colour shows on his cheek. His
face expresses his profound respect for my famous name and my erudition,
but I see in his eyes that he despises my voice, my pitiable figure, my
nervous gestures. When I am angry I seem to him a very queer fellow.
"I do not keep a shop," I storm. "It's an amazing business! Why don't
you want to be independent? Why do you find freedom so objectionable?"
I say a great deal, but he is silent. At last by degrees I grow calm,
and, of course, surrender. The aspirant will receive a valueless subject
from me, will write under my observation a needless thesis, will pass
his tedious disputation cum laude and will get a useless and learned
degree.
The rings follow in endless succession, but here I confine myself to
four. The fourth ring sounds, and I hear the familiar steps, the
rustling dress, the dear voice.
Eighteen years ago my dear friend, the oculist, died and left behind him
a seven year old daughter, Katy, and sixty thousand roubles. By his will
he made me guardian. Katy lived in my family till she was ten.
Afterwards she was sent to College and lived with me only in her
holidays in the summer months. I had no time to attend to her education.
I watched only by fits and starts; so that I can say very little about
her childhood.
The chief thing I remember, the one I love to dwell upon in memory, is
the extraordinary confidence which she had when she entered my house,
when she had to have the doctor,--a confidence which was always shining
in her darling face. She would sit in a corner somewhere with her face
tied up, and would be sure to be absorbed in watching something. Whether
she was watching me write and read books, or my wife bustling about, or
the cook peeling the potatoes in the kitchen or the dog playing
about--her eyes invariably expressed the same thing: "Everything that
goes on in this world,--everything is beautiful and clever." She was
inquisitive and adored to talk to me. She would sit at the table
opposite me, watching my movements and asking questions. She is
interested to know what I read, what I do at the University, if I'm not
afraid of corpses, what I do with my money.
"Do the students fight at the University?" she would ask.
"They do, my dear."
"You make them go down on their knees?"
"I do."
And it seemed funny to her that the students fought and that I made them
go down on their knees, and she laughed. She was a gentle, good, patient
child.
Pretty often I happened to see how something was taken away from her, or
she was unjustly punished, or her curiosity was not satisfied. At such
moments sadness would be added to her permanent expression of
confidence--nothing more. I didn't know how to take her part, but when I
saw her sadness, I always had the desire to draw her close to me and
comfort her in an old nurse's voice: "My darling little orphan!"
I remember too she loved to be well dressed and to sprinkle herself with
scents. In this she was like me. I also love good clothes and fine
scents.
I regret that I had neither the time nor the inclination to watch the
beginnings and the growth of the passion which had completely taken hold
of Katy when she was no more than fourteen or fifteen. I mean her
passionate love for the theatre. When she used to come from the College
for her holidays and live with us, nothing gave her such pleasure and
enthusiasm to talk about as plays and actors. She used to tire us with
her incessant conversation about the theatre. I alone hadn't the courage
to deny her my attention. My wife and children did not listen to her.
When she felt the desire to share her raptures she would come to my
study and coax: "Nicolai Stiepanich, do let me speak to you about the
theatre."
I used to show her the time and say:
"I'll give you half an hour. Fire away!"
Later on she used to bring in pictures of the actors and actresses she
worshipped--whole dozens of them. Then several times she tried to take
part in amateur theatricals, and finally when she left College she
declared to me she was born to be an actress.
I never shared Katy's enthusiasms for the theatre. My opinion is that if
a play is good then there's no need to trouble the actors for it to make
the proper impression; you can be satisfied merely by reading it. If the
play is bad, no acting will make it good.
When I was young I often went to the theatre, and nowadays my family
takes a box twice a year and carries me off for an airing there. Of
course this is not enough to give me the right to pass verdicts on the
theatre; but I will say a few words about it. In my opinion the theatre
hasn't improved in the last thirty or forty years. I can't find any more
than I did then, a glass of dean water, either in the corridors or the
foyer. Just as they did then, the attendants fine me sixpence for my
coat, though there's nothing illegal in wearing a warm coat in winter.
Just as it did then, the orchestra plays quite unnecessarily in the
intervals, and adds a new, gratuitous impression to the one received
from the play. Just as they did then, men go to the bar in the intervals
and drink spirits. If there is no perceptible improvement in little
things, it will be useless to look for it in the bigger things. When an
actor, hide-bound in theatrical traditions and prejudices, tries to read
simple straightforward monologue: "To be or not to be," not at all
simply, but with an incomprehensible and inevitable hiss and convulsions
over his whole body, or when he tries to convince me that Chazky, who is
always talking to fools and is in love with a fool, is a very clever man
and that "The Sorrows of Knowledge" is not a boring play,--then I get
from the stage a breath of the same old routine that exasperated me
forty years ago when I was regaled with classical lamentation and
beating on the breast. Every time I come out of the theatre a more
thorough conservative than I went in.
It's quite possible to convince the sentimental, self-confident crowd
that the theatre in its present state is an education. But not a man who
knows what true education is would swallow this. I don't know what it
may be in fifty or a hundred years, but under present conditions the
theatre can only be a recreation. But the recreation is too expensive
for continual use, and robs the country of thousands of young, healthy,
gifted men and women, who if they had not devoted themselves to the
theatre would be excellent doctors, farmers, schoolmistresses, or
officers. It robs the public of its evenings, the best time for
intellectual work and friendly conversation. I pass over the waste of
money and the moral injuries to the spectator when he sees murder,
adultery, or slander wrongly treated on the stage.
But Katy's opinion was quite the opposite. She assured me that even in
its present state the theatre is above lecture-rooms and books, above
everything else in the world. The theatre is a power that unites in
itself all the arts, and the actors are men with a mission. No separate
art or science can act on the human soul so strongly and truly as the
stage; and therefore it is reasonable that a medium actor should enjoy
much greater popularity than the finest scholar or painter. No public
activity can give such delight and satisfaction as the theatrical.
So one fine day Katy joined a theatrical company and went away, I
believe, to Ufa, taking with her a lot of money, a bagful of rainbow
hopes, and some very high-class views on the business.
Her first letters on the journey were wonderful. When I read them I was
simply amazed that little sheets of paper could contain so much youth,
such transparent purity, such divine innocence, and at the same time so
many subtle, sensible judgments, that would do honour to a sound
masculine intelligence. The Volga, nature, the towns she visited, her
friends, her successes and failures--she did not write about them, she
sang. Every line breathed the confidence which I used to see in her
face; and with all this a mass of grammatical mistakes and hardly a
single stop.
Scarce six months passed before I received a highly poetical
enthusiastic letter, beginning, "I have fallen in love." She enclosed a
photograph of a young man with a clean-shaven face, in a broad-brimmed
hat, with a plaid thrown over his shoulders. The next letters were just
as splendid, but stops already began to appear and the grammatical
mistakes to vanish. They had a strong masculine scent. Katy began to
write about what a good thing it would be to build a big theatre
somewhere in the Volga, but on a cooperative basis, and to attract the
rich business-men and shipowners to the undertaking. There would be
plenty of money, huge receipts, and the actors would work in
partnership.... Perhaps all this is really a good thing, but I can't
help thinking such schemes could only come from a man's head.
Anyhow for eighteen months or a couple of years everything seemed to be
all right. Katy was in love, had her heart in her business and was
happy. But later on I began to notice dear symptoms of a decline in her
letters. It began with Katy complaining about her friends. This is the
first and most ominous sign. If a young scholar or litterateur begins
his career by complaining bitterly about other scholars or
littérateurs, it means that he is tired already and not fit for his
business. Katy wrote to me that her friends would not come to rehearsals
and never knew their parts; that they showed an utter contempt for the
public in the absurd plays they staged and the manner they behaved. To
swell the box-office receipts--the only topic of conversation--serious
actresses degrade themselves by singing sentimentalities, and tragic
actors sing music-hall songs, laughing at husbands who are deceived and
unfaithful wives who are pregnant. In short, it was amazing that the
profession, in the provinces, was not absolutely dead. The marvel was
that it could exist at all with such thin, rotten blood in its veins.