"Old servants do not forget their masters.... It's very nice of you,"
said Orlov jocosely. "Will you have some wine and some coffee, though? I
will tell them to make some."
"No, thank you. I have come to see you about a very important matter,
Georgy Ivanitch."
"I am not very fond of important matters, but I shall be glad to be of
service to you. What do you want?"
"You see," I began, growing agitated, "I have here with me Zinaida
Fyodorovna's daughter.... Hitherto I have brought her up, but, as you
see, before many days I shall be an empty sound. I should like to die
with the thought that she is provided for."
Orlov coloured a little, frowned a little, and took a cursory and sullen
glance at me. He was unpleasantly affected, not so much by the
"important matter" as by my words about death, about becoming an empty
sound.
"Yes, it must be thought about," he said, screening his eyes as though
from the sun. "Thank you. You say it's a girl?"
"Yes, a girl. A wonderful child!"
"Yes. Of course, it's not a lap-dog, but a human being. I understand we
must consider it seriously. I am prepared to do my part, and am very
grateful to you."
He got up, walked about, biting his nails, and stopped before a picture.
"We must think about it," he said in a hollow voice, standing with his
back to me. "I shall go to Pekarsky's to-day and will ask him to go to
Krasnovsky's. I don't think he will make much ado about consenting to
take the child."
"But, excuse me, I don't see what Krasnovsky has got to do with it," I
said, also getting up and walking to a picture at the other end of the
room.
"But she bears his name, of course!" said Orlov.
"Yes, he may be legally obliged to accept the child--I don't know; but I
came to you, Georgy Ivanitch, not to discuss the legal aspect."
"Yes, yes, you are right," he agreed briskly. "I believe I am talking
nonsense. But don't excite yourself. We will decide the matter to our
mutual satisfaction. If one thing won't do, we'll try another; and if
that won't do, we'll try a third--one way or another this delicate
question shall be settled. Pekarsky will arrange it all. Be so good as
to leave me your address and I will let you know at once what we decide.
Where are you living?"
Orlov wrote down my address, sighed, and said with a smile:
"Oh, Lord, what a job it is to be the father of a little daughter! But
Pekarsky will arrange it all. He is a sensible man. Did you stay long in
Paris?"
"Two months."
We were silent. Orlov was evidently afraid I should begin talking of the
child again, and to turn my attention in another direction, said:
"You have probably forgotten your letter by now. But I have kept it. I
understand your mood at the time, and, I must own, I respect that
letter. 'Damnable cold blood,' 'Asiatic,' 'coarse laugh'--that was
charming and characteristic," he went on with an ironical smile. "And
the fundamental thought is perhaps near the truth, though one might
dispute the question endlessly. That is," he hesitated, "not dispute the
thought itself, but your attitude to the question--your temperament, so
to say. Yes, my life is abnormal, corrupted, of no use to any one, and
what prevents me from beginning a new life is cowardice--there you are
quite right. But that you take it so much to heart, are troubled, and
reduced to despair by it--that's irrational; there you are quite wrong."
"A living man cannot help being troubled and reduced to despair when he
sees that he himself is going to ruin and others are going to ruin round
him."
"Who doubts it! I am not advocating indifference; all I ask for is an
objective attitude to life. The more objective, the less danger of
falling into error. One must look into the root of things, and try to
see in every phenomenon a cause of all the other causes. We have grown
feeble, slack--degraded, in fact. Our generation is entirely composed of
neurasthenics and whimperers; we do nothing but talk of fatigue and
exhaustion. But the fault is neither yours nor mine; we are of too
little consequence to affect the destiny of a whole generation. We must
suppose for that larger, more general causes with a solid _raison
d'être_ from the biological point of view. We are neurasthenics, flabby,
renegades, but perhaps it's necessary and of service for generations
that will come after us. Not one hair falls from the head without the
will of the Heavenly Father--in other words, nothing happens by chance
in Nature and in human environment. Everything has its cause and is
inevitable. And if so, why should we worry and write despairing
letters?"
"That's all very well," I said, thinking a little. "I believe it will be
easier and clearer for the generations to come; our experience will be
at their service. But one wants to live apart from future generations
and not only for their sake. Life is only given us once, and one wants
to live it boldly, with full consciousness and beauty. One wants to play
a striking, independent, noble part; one wants to make history so that
those generations may not have the right to say of each of us that we
were nonentities or worse.... I believe what is going on about us is
inevitable and not without a purpose, but what have I to do with that
inevitability? Why should my ego be lost?"
"Well, there's no help for it," sighed Orlov, getting up and, as it
were, giving me to understand that our conversation was over.