The deacon was very easily amused, and laughed at every trifle till
he got a stitch in his side, till he was helpless. It seemed as
though he only liked to be in people's company because there was a
ridiculous side to them, and because they might be given ridiculous
nicknames. He had nicknamed Samoylenko "the tarantula," his orderly
"the drake," and was in ecstasies when on one occasion Von Koren
spoke of Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna as "Japanese monkeys."
He watched people's faces greedily, listened without blinking, and
it could be seen that his eyes filled with laughter and his face
was tense with expectation of the moment when he could let himself
go and burst into laughter.
"He is a corrupt and depraved type," the zoologist continued, while
the deacon kept his eyes riveted on his face, expecting he would
say something funny. "It is not often one can meet with such a
nonentity. In body he is inert, feeble, prematurely old, while in
intellect he differs in no respect from a fat shopkeeper's wife who
does nothing but eat, drink, and sleep on a feather-bed, and who
keeps her coachman as a lover."
The deacon began guffawing again.
"Don't laugh, deacon," said Von Koren. "It grows stupid, at last.
I should not have paid attention to his insignificance," he went
on, after waiting till the deacon had left off laughing; "I should
have passed him by if he were not so noxious and dangerous. His
noxiousness lies first of all in the fact that he has great success
with women, and so threatens to leave descendants--that is, to
present the world with a dozen Laevskys as feeble and as depraved
as himself. Secondly, he is in the highest degree contaminating. I
have spoken to you already of _vint_ and beer. In another year or
two he will dominate the whole Caucasian coast. You know how the
mass, especially its middle stratum, believe in intellectuality,
in a university education, in gentlemanly manners, and in literary
language. Whatever filthy thing he did, they would all believe that
it was as it should be, since he is an intellectual man, of liberal
ideas and university education. What is more, he is a failure, a
superfluous man, a neurasthenic, a victim of the age, and that means
he can do anything. He is a charming fellow, a regular good sort,
he is so genuinely indulgent to human weaknesses; he is compliant,
accommodating, easy and not proud; one can drink with him and gossip
and talk evil of people. . . . The masses, always inclined to
anthropomorphism in religion and morals, like best of all the little
gods who have the same weaknesses as themselves. Only think what a
wide field he has for contamination! Besides, he is not a bad actor
and is a clever hypocrite, and knows very well how to twist things
round. Only take his little shifts and dodges, his attitude to
civilisation, for instance. He has scarcely sniffed at civilisation,
yet: 'Ah, how we have been crippled by civilisation! Ah, how I envy
those savages, those children of nature, who know nothing of
civilisation!' We are to understand, you see, that at one time, in
ancient days, he has been devoted to civilisation with his whole
soul, has served it, has sounded it to its depths, but it has
exhausted him, disillusioned him, deceived him; he is a Faust, do
you see?--a second Tolstoy. . . . As for Schopenhauer and Spencer,
he treats them like small boys and slaps them on the shoulder in a
fatherly way: 'Well, what do you say, old Spencer?' He has not read
Spencer, of course, but how charming he is when with light, careless
irony he says of his lady friend: 'She has read Spencer!' And they
all listen to him, and no one cares to understand that this charlatan
has not the right to kiss the sole of Spencer's foot, let alone
speaking about him in that tone! Sapping the foundations of
civilisation, of authority, of other people's altars, spattering
them with filth, winking jocosely at them only to justify and conceal
one's own rottenness and moral poverty is only possible for a very
vain, base, and nasty creature."
"I don't know what it is you expect of him, Kolya," said Samoylenko,
looking at the zoologist, not with anger now, but with a guilty
air. "He is a man the same as every one else. Of course, he has his
weaknesses, but he is abreast of modern ideas, is in the service,
is of use to his country. Ten years ago there was an old fellow
serving as agent here, a man of the greatest intelligence . . . and
he used to say . . ."
"Nonsense, nonsense!" the zoologist interrupted. "You say he is in
the service; but how does he serve? Do you mean to tell me that
things have been done better because he is here, and the officials
are more punctual, honest, and civil? On the contrary, he has only
sanctioned their slackness by his prestige as an intellectual
university man. He is only punctual on the 20th of the month, when
he gets his salary; on the other days he lounges about at home in
slippers and tries to look as if he were doing the Government a
great service by living in the Caucasus. No, Alexandr Daviditch,
don't stick up for him. You are insincere from beginning to end.
If you really loved him and considered him your neighbour, you would
above all not be indifferent to his weaknesses, you would not be
indulgent to them, but for his own sake would try to make him
innocuous."
"That is?"
"Innocuous. Since he is incorrigible, he can only be made innocuous
in one way. . . ." Von Koren passed his finger round his throat.
"Or he might be drowned . . .", he added. "In the interests of
humanity and in their own interests, such people ought to be
destroyed. They certainly ought."
"What are you saying?" muttered Samoylenko, getting up and looking
with amazement at the zoologist's calm, cold face. "Deacon, what
is he saying? Why--are you in your senses?"
"I don't insist on the death penalty," said Von Koren. "If it is
proved that it is pernicious, devise something else. If we can't
destroy Laevsky, why then, isolate him, make him harmless, send him
to hard labour."
"What are you saying!" said Samoylenko in horror. "With pepper,
with pepper," he cried in a voice of despair, seeing that the deacon
was eating stuffed aubergines without pepper. "You with your great
intellect, what are you saying! Send our friend, a proud intellectual
man, to penal servitude!"
"Well, if he is proud and tries to resist, put him in fetters!"
Samoylenko could not utter a word, and only twiddled his fingers;
the deacon looked at his flabbergasted and really absurd face, and
laughed.
"Let us leave off talking of that," said the zoologist. "Only
remember one thing, Alexandr Daviditch: primitive man was preserved
from such as Laevsky by the struggle for existence and by natural
selection; now our civilisation has considerably weakened the
struggle and the selection, and we ought to look after the destruction
of the rotten and worthless for ourselves; otherwise, when the
Laevskys multiply, civilisation will perish and mankind will
degenerate utterly. It will be our fault."
"If it depends on drowning and hanging," said Samoylenko, "damnation
take your civilisation, damnation take your humanity! Damnation
take it! I tell you what: you are a very learned and intelligent
man and the pride of your country, but the Germans have ruined you.
Yes, the Germans! The Germans!"
Since Samoylenko had left Dorpat, where he had studied medicine,
he had rarely seen a German and had not read a single German book,
but, in his opinion, every harmful idea in politics or science was
due to the Germans. Where he had got this notion he could not have
said himself, but he held it firmly.
"Yes, the Germans!" he repeated once more. "Come and have some tea."
All three stood up, and putting on their hats, went out into the
little garden, and sat there under the shade of the light green
maples, the pear-trees, and a chestnut-tree. The zoologist and the
deacon sat on a bench by the table, while Samoylenko sank into a
deep wicker chair with a sloping back. The orderly handed them tea,
jam, and a bottle of syrup.
It was very hot, thirty degrees Réaumur in the shade. The sultry
air was stagnant and motionless, and a long spider-web, stretching
from the chestnut-tree to the ground, hung limply and did not stir.
The deacon took up the guitar, which was constantly lying on the
ground near the table, tuned it, and began singing softly in a thin
voice:
"'Gathered round the tavern were the seminary lads,'"
but instantly subsided, overcome by the heat, mopped his brow and
glanced upwards at the blazing blue sky. Samoylenko grew drowsy;
the sultry heat, the stillness and the delicious after-dinner
languor, which quickly pervaded all his limbs, made him feel heavy
and sleepy; his arms dropped at his sides, his eyes grew small, his
head sank on his breast. He looked with almost tearful tenderness
at Von Koren and the deacon, and muttered:
"The younger generation. . . A scientific star and a luminary of
the Church. . . . I shouldn't wonder if the long-skirted alleluia
will be shooting up into a bishop; I dare say I may come to kissing
his hand. . . . Well . . . please God. . . ."
Soon a snore was heard. Von Koren and the deacon finished their tea
and went out into the street.
"Are you going to the harbour again to catch sea-gudgeon?" asked
the zoologist.
"No, it's too hot."
"Come and see me. You can pack up a parcel and copy something for
me. By the way, we must have a talk about what you are to do. You
must work, deacon. You can't go on like this."
"Your words are just and logical," said the deacon. "But my laziness
finds an excuse in the circumstances of my present life. You know
yourself that an uncertain position has a great tendency to make
people apathetic. God only knows whether I have been sent here for
a time or permanently. I am living here in uncertainty, while my
wife is vegetating at her father's and is missing me. And I must
confess my brain is melting with the heat."
"That's all nonsense," said the zoologist. "You can get used to the
heat, and you can get used to being without the deaconess. You
mustn't be slack; you must pull yourself together."
V
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna went to bathe in the morning, and her cook,
Olga, followed her with a jug, a copper basin, towels, and a sponge.
In the bay stood two unknown steamers with dirty white funnels,
obviously foreign cargo vessels. Some men dressed in white and
wearing white shoes were walking along the harbour, shouting loudly
in French, and were answered from the steamers. The bells were
ringing briskly in the little church of the town.
"To-day is Sunday!" Nadyezhda Fyodorovna remembered with pleasure.
She felt perfectly well, and was in a gay holiday humour. In a new
loose-fitting dress of coarse thick tussore silk, and a big
wide-brimmed straw hat which was bent down over her ears, so that
her face looked out as though from a basket, she fancied she looked
very charming. She thought that in the whole town there was only
one young, pretty, intellectual woman, and that was herself, and
that she was the only one who knew how to dress herself cheaply,
elegantly, and with taste. That dress, for example, cost only
twenty-two roubles, and yet how charming it was! In the whole town
she was the only one who could be attractive, while there were
numbers of men, so they must all, whether they would or not, be
envious of Laevsky.
She was glad that of late Laevsky had been cold to her, reserved
and polite, and at times even harsh and rude; in the past she had
met all his outbursts, all his contemptuous, cold or strange
incomprehensible glances, with tears, reproaches, and threats to
leave him or to starve herself to death; now she only blushed,
looked guiltily at him, and was glad he was not affectionate to
her. If he had abused her, threatened her, it would have been better
and pleasanter, since she felt hopelessly guilty towards him. She
felt she was to blame, in the first place, for not sympathising
with the dreams of a life of hard work, for the sake of which he
had given up Petersburg and had come here to the Caucasus, and she
was convinced that he had been angry with her of late for precisely
that. When she was travelling to the Caucasus, it seemed that she
would find here on the first day a cosy nook by the sea, a snug
little garden with shade, with birds, with little brooks, where she
could grow flowers and vegetables, rear ducks and hens, entertain
her neighbours, doctor poor peasants and distribute little books
amongst them. It had turned out that the Caucasus was nothing but
bare mountains, forests, and huge valleys, where it took a long
time and a great deal of effort to find anything and settle down;
that there were no neighbours of any sort; that it was very hot and
one might be robbed. Laevsky had been in no hurry to obtain a piece
of land; she was glad of it, and they seemed to be in a tacit compact
never to allude to a life of hard work. He was silent about it, she
thought, because he was angry with her for being silent about it.
In the second place, she had without his knowledge during those two
years bought various trifles to the value of three hundred roubles
at Atchmianov's shop. She had bought the things by degrees, at one
time materials, at another time silk or a parasol, and the debt had
grown imperceptibly.
"I will tell him about it to-day . . .", she used to decide, but
at once reflected that in Laevsky's present mood it would hardly
be convenient to talk to him of debts.
Thirdly, she had on two occasions in Laevsky's absence received a
visit from Kirilin, the police captain: once in the morning when
Laevsky had gone to bathe, and another time at midnight when he was
playing cards. Remembering this, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna flushed
crimson, and looked round at the cook as though she might overhear
her thoughts. The long, insufferably hot, wearisome days, beautiful
languorous evenings and stifling nights, and the whole manner of
living, when from morning to night one is at a loss to fill up the
useless hours, and the persistent thought that she was the prettiest
young woman in the town, and that her youth was passing and being
wasted, and Laevsky himself, though honest and idealistic, always
the same, always lounging about in his slippers, biting his nails,
and wearying her with his caprices, led by degrees to her becoming
possessed by desire, and as though she were mad, she thought of
nothing else day and night. Breathing, looking, walking, she felt
nothing but desire. The sound of the sea told her she must love;
the darkness of evening--the same; the mountains--the same. . . .
And when Kirilin began paying her attentions, she had neither
the power nor the wish to resist, and surrendered to him. . . .
Now the foreign steamers and the men in white reminded her for some
reason of a huge hall; together with the shouts of French she heard
the strains of a waltz, and her bosom heaved with unaccountable
delight. She longed to dance and talk French.
She reflected joyfully that there was nothing terrible about her
infidelity. Her soul had no part in her infidelity; she still loved
Laevsky, and that was proved by the fact that she was jealous of
him, was sorry for him, and missed him when he was away. Kirilin
had turned out to be very mediocre, rather coarse though handsome;
everything was broken off with him already and there would never
be anything more. What had happened was over; it had nothing to do
with any one, and if Laevsky found it out he would not believe in
it.
There was only one bathing-house for ladies on the sea-front; men
bathed under the open sky. Going into the bathing-house, Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna found there an elderly lady, Marya Konstantinovna Bityugov,
and her daughter Katya, a schoolgirl of fifteen; both of them were
sitting on a bench undressing. Marya Konstantinovna was a good-natured,
enthusiastic, and genteel person, who talked in a drawling and
pathetic voice. She had been a governess until she was thirty-two,
and then had married Bityugov, a Government official--a bald
little man with his hair combed on to his temples and with a very
meek disposition. She was still in love with him, was jealous,
blushed at the word "love," and told every one she was very happy.
"My dear," she cried enthusiastically, on seeing Nadyezhda Fyodorovna,
assuming an expression which all her acquaintances called "almond-oily."
"My dear, how delightful that you have come! We'll bathe together
--that's enchanting!"
Olga quickly flung off her dress and chemise, and began undressing
her mistress.
"It's not quite so hot to-day as yesterday?" said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna,
shrinking at the coarse touch of the naked cook. "Yesterday I almost
died of the heat."
"Oh, yes, my dear; I could hardly breathe myself. Would you believe
it? I bathed yesterday three times! Just imagine, my dear, three
times! Nikodim Alexandritch was quite uneasy."
"Is it possible to be so ugly?" thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, looking
at Olga and the official's wife; she glanced at Katya and thought:
"The little girl's not badly made."
"Your Nikodim Alexandritch is very charming!" she said. "I'm simply
in love with him."
"Ha, ha, ha!" cried Marya Konstantinovna, with a forced laugh;
"that's quite enchanting."
Free from her clothes, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna felt a desire to fly.
And it seemed to her that if she were to wave her hands she would
fly upwards. When she was undressed, she noticed that Olga looked
scornfully at her white body. Olga, a young soldier's wife, was
living with her lawful husband, and so considered herself superior
to her mistress. Marya Konstantinovna and Katya were afraid of her,
and did not respect her. This was disagreeable, and to raise herself
in their opinion, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna said:
"At home, in Petersburg, summer villa life is at its height now.
My husband and I have so many friends! We ought to go and see them."
"I believe your husband is an engineer?" said Marya Konstantinovna
timidly.
"I am speaking of Laevsky. He has a great many acquaintances. But
unfortunately his mother is a proud aristocrat, not very
intelligent. . . ."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna threw herself into the water without finishing;
Marya Konstantinovna and Katya made their way in after her.
"There are so many conventional ideas in the world," Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna went on, "and life is not so easy as it seems."
Marya Konstantinovna, who had been a governess in aristocratic
families and who was an authority on social matters, said:
"Oh yes! Would you believe me, my dear, at the Garatynskys' I was
expected to dress for lunch as well as for dinner, so that, like
an actress, I received a special allowance for my wardrobe in
addition to my salary."
She stood between Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and Katya as though to screen
her daughter from the water that washed the former.
Through the open doors looking out to the sea they could see some
one swimming a hundred paces from their bathing-place.
"Mother, it's our Kostya," said Katya.
"Ach, ach!" Marya Konstantinovna cackled in her dismay. "Ach,
Kostya!" she shouted, "Come back! Kostya, come back!"
Kostya, a boy of fourteen, to show off his prowess before his mother
and sister, dived and swam farther, but began to be exhausted and
hurried back, and from his strained and serious face it could be
seen that he could not trust his own strength.
"The trouble one has with these boys, my dear!" said Marya
Konstantinovna, growing calmer. "Before you can turn round, he will
break his neck. Ah, my dear, how sweet it is, and yet at the same
time how difficult, to be a mother! One's afraid of everything."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna put on her straw hat and dashed out into the
open sea. She swam some thirty feet and then turned on her back.
She could see the sea to the horizon, the steamers, the people on
the sea-front, the town; and all this, together with the sultry
heat and the soft, transparent waves, excited her and whispered
that she must live, live. . . . A sailing-boat darted by her rapidly
and vigorously, cleaving the waves and the air; the man sitting at
the helm looked at her, and she liked being looked at. . . .
After bathing, the ladies dressed and went away together.
"I have fever every alternate day, and yet I don't get thin," said
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, licking her lips, which were salt from the
bathe, and responding with a smile to the bows of her acquaintances.
"I've always been plump, and now I believe I'm plumper than ever."
"That, my dear, is constitutional. If, like me, one has no
constitutional tendency to stoutness, no diet is of any use. . . .
But you've wetted your hat, my dear."
"It doesn't matter; it will dry."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna saw again the men in white who were walking
on the sea-front and talking French; and again she felt a sudden
thrill of joy, and had a vague memory of some big hall in which she
had once danced, or of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. And
something at the bottom of her soul dimly and obscurely whispered
to her that she was a pretty, common, miserable, worthless
woman. . . .
Marya Konstantinovna stopped at her gate and asked her to come in
and sit down for a little while.
"Come in, my dear," she said in an imploring voice, and at the same
time she looked at Nadyezhda Fyodorovna with anxiety and hope;
perhaps she would refuse and not come in!
"With pleasure," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, accepting. "You know
how I love being with you!"
And she went into the house. Marya Konstantinovna sat her down and
gave her coffee, regaled her with milk rolls, then showed her
photographs of her former pupils, the Garatynskys, who were by now
married. She showed her, too, the examination reports of Kostya and
Katya. The reports were very good, but to make them seem even better,
she complained, with a sigh, how difficult the lessons at school
were now. . . . She made much of her visitor, and was sorry for
her, though at the same time she was harassed by the thought that
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna might have a corrupting influence on the morals
of Kostya and Katya, and was glad that her Nikodim Alexandritch was
not at home. Seeing that in her opinion all men are fond of "women
like that," Nadyezhda Fyodorovna might have a bad effect on Nikodim
Alexandritch too.
As she talked to her visitor, Marya Konstantinovna kept remembering
that they were to have a picnic that evening, and that Von Koren
had particularly begged her to say nothing about it to the "Japanese
monkeys"--that is, Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna; but she
dropped a word about it unawares, crimsoned, and said in confusion:
"I hope you will come too!"