“Well,” Paklin was the first to begin, “we have been to the eighteenth
century, now let us fly to the twentieth! Golushkin is such a go-ahead
man that one can hardly count him as belonging to the nineteenth.”
“Why, do you know him?”
“What a question! Did you know my poll-parrots?”
“No, but you introduced us.”
“Well, then, introduce me. I don’t suppose you have any secrets to
talk over, and Golushkin is a hospitable man. You will see; he will be
delighted to see a new face. We are not very formal here in S.”
“Yes,” Markelov muttered, “I have certainly noticed an absence of
formality about the people here.”
Paklin shook his head.
“I suppose that was a hit for me... I can’t help it ... I deserve it, no
doubt. But may I suggest, my new friend, that you throw off those sad,
oppressive thoughts, no doubt due to your bilious temperament... and
chiefly—”
“And you sir, my new friend,” Markelov interrupted him angrily, “allow
me to tell you, by way of a warning, that I have never in my life been
given to joking, least of all today! And what do you know about my
temperament, I should like to know? It strikes me that it is not so very
long since we first set eyes on one another.”
“There, there, don’t get angry and don’t swear. I believe you without
that,” Paklin exclaimed. “Oh you,” he said, turning to Solomin, “you,
whom the wise Fimishka called a cool sort of man, and there certainly is
something restful about you—do you think I had the slightest intention
of saying anything unpleasant to anyone or of joking out of place?
I only suggested going with you to Golushkin’s. Besides, I’m such a
harmless person; it’s not my fault that Mr. Markelov has a bilious
complexion.”
Solomin first shrugged one shoulder, then the other. It was a habit of
his when he did not quite know what to say.
“I don’t think,” he said at last, “that you could offend anyone, Mr.
Paklin, or that you wished to—and why should you not come with us
to Mr. Golushkin? We shall, no doubt, spend our time there just as
pleasantly as we did at your kinsman’s—and just as profitably most
likely.”
Paklin threatened him with his finger.
“Oh! I see, you can be wicked too if you like! However, you are also
coming to Golushkin’s, are you not?”
“Of course I am. I have wasted the day as it is.”
“Well then, _en avant, marchons_! To the twentieth century! To the
twentieth century! Nejdanov, you are an advanced man, lead the way!”
“Very well, come along; only don’t keep on repeating the same jokes lest
we should think you are running short.”
“I have still enough left for you, my dear friends,” Paklin said gaily
and went on ahead, not by leaping, but by limping, as he said.
“What an amusing man!” Solomin remarked as he was walking along
arm-in-arm with Nejdanov; “if we should ever be sent to Siberia, which
Heaven forbid, there will be someone to entertain us at any rate.”
Markelov walked in silence behind the others.
Meanwhile great preparations were going on at Golushkin’s to produce
a “chic” dinner. (Golushkin, as a man of the highest European culture,
kept a French cook, who had formerly been dismissed from a club for
dirtiness.) A nasty, greasy fish soup was prepared, various _pâtés chauds_
and fricassés and, most important of all, several bottles of champagne
had been procured and put into ice.
The host met the young people with his characteristic awkwardness,
bustle, and much giggling. He was delighted to see Paklin as the latter
had predicted and asked of him, “Is he one of us? Of course he is! I
need not have asked,” he said, without waiting for a reply. He began
telling them how he had just come from that “old fogey” the governor,
and how the latter worried him to death about some sort of charity
institution. It was difficult to say what satisfied Golushkin most, the
fact that he was received at the governor’s, or that he was able to
abuse that worthy before these advanced, young men. Then he introduced
them to the promised proselyte, who turned out to be no other than the
sleek consumptive individual with the long neck whom they had seen
in the morning, Vasia, Golushkin’s clerk. “He hasn’t much to say,”
Golushkin declared, “but is devoted heart and soul to our cause.” To
this Vasia bowed, blushed, blinked his eyes, and grinned in such a
manner that it was impossible to say whether he was merely a vulgar
fool or an out-and-out knave and blackguard.
“Well, gentlemen, let us go to dinner,” Golushkin exclaimed.
They partook of various kinds of salt fish to give them an appetite and
sat down to the table. Directly after the soup, Golushkin ordered the
champagne to be brought up, which came out in frozen little lumps as
he poured it into the glasses. “For our ... our enterprise!” Golushkin
exclaimed, winking at the servant, as much as to say, “One must be
careful in the presence of strangers.” The proselyte Vasia continued
silent, and though he sat on the very edge of his chair and conducted
himself generally with a servility quite out of keeping with the
convictions to which, according to his master, he was devoted body and
soul, yet gulped down the wine with an amazing greediness. The others
made up for his silence, however, that is, Golushkin and Paklin,
especially Paklin. Nejdanov was inwardly annoyed, Markelov angry and
indignant, just as indignant, though in a different way, as he had been
at the Subotchevs’; Solomin was observant.
Paklin was in high spirits and delighted Golushkin with his sharp,
ready wit. The latter had not the slightest suspicion that the “little
cripple” every now and again whispered to Nejdanov, who happened to be
sitting beside him, the most unflattering remarks at his, Golushkin’s,
expense. He thought him “a simple sort of fellow” who might be
patronised; that was probably why he liked him. Had Paklin been sitting
next him he would no doubt have poked him in the ribs or slapped him on
the shoulder, but as it was, he merely contented himself by nodding and
winking in his direction. Between him and Nejdanov sat Markelov, like a
dark cloud, and then Solomin. Golushkin went into convulsions at every
word Paklin said, laughed on trust in advance, holding his sides and
showing his bluish gums. Paklin soon saw what was expected of him and
began abusing everything (it being an easy thing for him), everything
and everybody; conservatives, liberals, officials, lawyers,
administrators, landlords, county councils and district councils, Moscow
and St. Petersburg. “Yes, yes, yes,” Golushkin put in, “that’s just
how it is! For instance, our mayor here is a perfect ass! A hopeless
blockhead! I tell him one thing after another, but he doesn’t understand
a single word; just like our governor!”
“Is your governor a fool then?” Paklin asked.
“I told you he was an ass!”
“By the way, does he speak in a hoarse voice or through his nose?”
“What do you mean?” Golushkin asked somewhat bewildered.
“Why, don’t you know? In Russia all our important civilians speak in
a hoarse voice and our great army men speak through the nose. Only our
very highest dignitaries do both at the same time.”
Golushkin roared with laughter till the tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Yes, yes,” he spluttered, “if he talks through his nose ... then he’s
an army man!”
“You idiot!” Paklin thought to himself.
“Everything is rotten in this country, wherever you may turn!” he bawled
out after a pause. “Everything is rotten, everything!”
“My dear Kapiton Andraitch,” Paklin began suggestively (he had just
asked Nejdanov in an undertone, “Why does he throw his arms about as if
his coat were too tight for him?”), “my dear Kapiton Andraitch, believe
me, half measures are of no use!”
“Who talks of half measures!” Golushkin shouted furiously (he had
suddenly ceased laughing), “there’s only one thing to be done; it must
all be pulled up by the roots: Vasia, drink!”
“I am drinking, Kapiton Andraitch,” the clerk observed, emptying a glass
down his throat.
Golushkin followed his suit.
“I wonder he doesn’t burst!” Paklin whispered to Nejdanov.
“He’s used to it!” the latter replied.
But the clerk was not the only one who drank. Little by little the wine
affected them all. Nejdanov, Markelov, and even Solomin began taking
part in the conversation.
At first disdainfully, as if annoyed with himself for doing so, for not
keeping up his character, Nejdanov began to hold forth. He maintained
that the time had now come to leave off playing with words; that the
time had come for “action,” that they were now on sure ground! And
then, quite unconscious of the fact that he was contradicting himself,
he began to demand of them to show him what real existing elements they
had to rely on, saying that as far as he could see society was utterly
unsympathetic towards them, and the people were as ignorant as could be.
Nobody made any objection to what he said, not because there was nothing
to object to, but because everyone was talking on his own account.
Markelov hammered out obstinately in his hoarse, angry, monotonous voice
(“just as if he were chopping cabbage,” Paklin remarked). Precisely what
he was talking about no one could make out, but the word “artillery”
could be heard in a momentary hush. He was no doubt referring to the
defects he had discovered in its organisation. Germans and adjutants
were also brought in. Solomin remarked that there were two ways of
waiting, waiting and doing nothing and waiting while pushing things
ahead at the same time.
“We don’t want moderates,” Markelov said angrily.
“The moderates have so far been working among the upper classes,”
Solomin remarked, “and we must go for the lower.”
“We don’t want it! damnation! We don’t want it!” Golushkin bawled out
furiously. “We must do everything with one blow! With one blow, I say!”
“What is the use of extreme measures? It’s like jumping out of the
window.”
“And I’ll jump too, if necessary!” Golushkin shouted. “I’ll jump! and
so will Vasia! I’ve only to tell him and he’ll jump! eh, Vasia? You’ll
jump, eh?”
The clerk finished his glass of champagne.
“Where you go, Kapiton Andraitch, there I follow. I shouldn’t dare do
otherwise.”
“You had better not, or I’ll make mincemeat of you!”
Soon a perfect babel followed.
Like the first flakes of snow whirling round and round in the mild
autumn air, so words began flying in all directions in Golushkin’s hot,
stuffy dining-room; all kinds of words, rolling and tumbling over one
another: progress, government, literature, the taxation question, the
church question, the woman question; the law-court question, realism,
nihilism, communism, international, clerical, liberal, capital,
administration, organisation, association, and even crystallisation!
It was just what Golushkin wanted; this uproar seemed to him the real
thing. He was triumphant. “Look at us! out of the way or I’ll knock
you on the head! Kapiton Golushkin is coming!” At last the clerk Vasia
became so tipsy that he began to giggle and talk to his plate. All
at once he jumped up shouting wildly, “What sort of devil is this
_pro_gymnasium?”
Golushkin sprang up too, and throwing back his hot, flushed face, on
which an expression of vulgar self-satisfaction was curiously mingled
with a feeling of terror, a secret misgiving, he bawled out, “I’ll
sacrifice another thousand! Get it for me, Vasia!” To which Vasia
replied, “All right!”
Just then Paklin, pale and perspiring (he had been drinking no less than
the clerk during the last quarter of an hour), jumped up from his seat
and, waving both his arms above his head, shouted brokenly, “Sacrifice!
Sacrifice! What pollution of such a holy word! Sacrifice! No one dares
live up to thee, no one can fulfill thy commands, certainly not one of
us here—and this fool, this miserable money-bag opens its belly, lets
forth a few of its miserable roubles, and shouts ‘Sacrifice!’ And wants
to be thanked, expects a wreath of laurels, the mean scoundrel!”
Golushkin either did not hear or did not understand what Paklin was
saying, or perhaps took it only as a joke, because he shouted again,
“Yes, a thousand roubles! Kapiton Golushkin keeps his word!” And so
saying he thrust his hand into a side pocket. “Here is the money,
take it! Tear it to pieces! Remember Kapiton!” When under excitement
Golushkin invariably talked of himself in the third person, as children
often do. Nejdanov picked up the notes which Golushkin had flung on the
table covered with wine stains. Since there was nothing more to wait
for, and the hour was getting late, they rose, took their hats, and
departed.
They all felt giddy as soon as they got out into the fresh air,
especially Paklin.
“Well, where are we going to now?” he asked with an effort.
“I don’t know were you are going, but I’m going home,” Solomin replied.
“Back to the factory?”
“Yes.”
“Now, at night, and on foot?”
“Why not? I don’t think there are any wolves or robbers here—and my
legs are quite strong enough to carry me. It’s cooler walking at night.”
“But hang it all, it’s four miles!”
“I wouldn’t mind if it were more. Good-bye, gentlemen.” Solomin buttoned
his coat, pulled his cap over his forehead, lighted a cigar, and walked
down the street with long strides.
“And where are you going to?” Paklin asked, turning to Nejdanov.
“I’m going home with him.” He pointed to Markelov, who was standing
motionless, his hands crossed on his breast. “We have horses and a
conveyance.”
“Very well.... And I’m going to Fomishka’s and Fimishka’s oasis. And
do you know what I should like to say? There’s twaddle here and twaddle
there, only that twaddle, the twaddle of the eighteenth century, is
nearer to the Russian character than the twaddle of the twentieth
century. Goodbye, gentlemen. I’m drunk, so don’t be offended at what I
say, only a better woman than my sister Snandulia... is not to be found
on God’s earth, although she is a hunchback and called Snandulia. That’s
how things are arranged in this world! She ought to have such a name. Do
you know who Saint Snandulia was? She was a virtuous woman who used to
visit prisons and heal the wounds of the sick. But... goodbye! goodbye,
Nejdanov, thou man to be pitied! And you, officer... ugh! misanthrope!
goodbye!” He dragged himself away, limping and swaying from side to
side, towards the oasis, while Markelov and Nejdanov sought out the
posting inn where they had left their conveyance, ordered the horses to
be harnessed, and half an hour later were driving along the high road.