It was late, eleven o'clock, when they began to get into the carriages
to go home. They took their seats, and the only ones missing were
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and Atchmianov, who were running after one
another, laughing, the other side of the stream.
"Make haste, my friends," shouted Samoylenko.
"You oughtn't to give ladies wine," said Von Koren in a low voice.
Laevsky, exhausted by the picnic, by the hatred of Von Koren, and
by his own thoughts, went to meet Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and when,
gay and happy, feeling light as a feather, breathless and laughing,
she took him by both hands and laid her head on his breast, he
stepped back and said dryly:
"You are behaving like a . . . cocotte."
It sounded horribly coarse, so that he felt sorry for her at once.
On his angry, exhausted face she read hatred, pity and vexation
with himself, and her heart sank at once. She realised instantly
that she had gone too far, had been too free and easy in her
behaviour, and overcome with misery, feeling herself heavy, stout,
coarse, and drunk, she got into the first empty carriage together
with Atchmianov. Laevsky got in with Kirilin, the zoologist with
Samoylenko, the deacon with the ladies, and the party set off.
"You see what the Japanese monkeys are like," Von Koren began,
rolling himself up in his cloak and shutting his eyes. "You heard
she doesn't care to take an interest in beetles and ladybirds because
the people are suffering. That's how all the Japanese monkeys look
upon people like us. They're a slavish, cunning race, terrified by
the whip and the fist for ten generations; they tremble and burn
incense only before violence; but let the monkey into a free state
where there's no one to take it by the collar, and it relaxes at
once and shows itself in its true colours. Look how bold they are
in picture galleries, in museums, in theatres, or when they talk
of science: they puff themselves out and get excited, they are
abusive and critical . . . they are bound to criticise--it's the
sign of the slave. You listen: men of the liberal professions are
more often sworn at than pickpockets--that's because three-quarters
of society are made up of slaves, of just such monkeys. It never
happens that a slave holds out his hand to you and sincerely says
'Thank you' to you for your work."
"I don't know what you want," said Samoylenko, yawning; "the poor
thing, in the simplicity of her heart, wanted to talk to you of
scientific subjects, and you draw a conclusion from that. You're
cross with him for something or other, and with her, too, to keep
him company. She's a splendid woman."
"Ah, nonsense! An ordinary kept woman, depraved and vulgar. Listen,
Alexandr Daviditch; when you meet a simple peasant woman, who isn't
living with her husband, who does nothing but giggle, you tell her
to go and work. Why are you timid in this case and afraid to tell
the truth? Simply because Nadyezhda Fyodorovna is kept, not by a
sailor, but by an official."
"What am I to do with her?" said Samoylenko, getting angry. "Beat
her or what?
"Not flatter vice. We curse vice only behind its back, and that's
like making a long nose at it round a corner. I am a zoologist or
a sociologist, which is the same thing; you are a doctor; society
believes in us; we ought to point out the terrible harm which
threatens it and the next generation from the existence of ladies
like Nadyezhda Ivanovna."
"Fyodorovna," Samoylenko corrected. "But what ought society to do?"
"Society? That's its affair. To my thinking the surest and most
direct method is--compulsion. _Manu militari_ she ought to be
returned to her husband; and if her husband won't take her in, then
she ought to be sent to penal servitude or some house of correction."
"Ouf!" sighed Samoylenko. He paused and asked quietly: "You said
the other day that people like Laevsky ought to be destroyed. . . .
Tell me, if you . . . if the State or society commissioned you
to destroy him, could you . . . bring yourself to it?"
"My hand would not tremble."