‘That’s of no interest to you.’
I did not appeal to her at all. She did not like me because I was a landscape painter who did not portray the hardships of the common people in my canvases and because – so she thought – I was indifferent to all her deepest beliefs. I remember, when I was once travelling along the shores of Lake Baikal2 I met a young Buryat3 girl on horseback, wearing a smock and cotton trousers. I asked her to sell me her pipe, but while we were talking she looked contemptuously at my European face and hat. All of a sudden she became tired of talking and galloped off, uttering wild yells. And in the same way Lida looked down on me, because we were from different worlds. She didn’t express her dislike openly, but I could sense it. Sitting on the bottom step of the terrace I felt irritated and told her that dishing out treatment to peasants without being a doctor was a fraud: it was easy enough to play the Good Samaritan when one had five thousand acres of one’s own.
But her sister Missy didn’t have a care in the world. Like me, she lived a life of complete idleness. The moment she got up in the morning she would take a book and sit reading in a deep armchair on the terrace with her feet barely touching the ground; or she would escape with her book to the lime-tree avenue, or go beyond the gates into the open fields. She would read all day long, eagerly poring over her book and one could only tell from her occasionally tired and glazed look, and her extreme pallor, how taxing this really was for her. When I came she would blush slightly on seeing me, put down her book, look into my face with her big eyes and tell me enthusiastically what had been happening – for example, that the chimney in the servants’ quarters had caught fire, or that a workman had hooked a large fish in the pond. On weekdays she usually went around in a brightly coloured blouse and navy blue skirt. We would go for walks together, pick cherries for jam or go boating and whenever she jumped up to reach the cherries or plied the oars her thin, delicate arms showed through her full sleeves. Occasionally, I would sketch while she stood beside me, looking on admiringly.
One Sunday at the end of July I went over to the Volchaninovs at about nine in the morning and I walked through the park, keeping as far as I could away from the house, looking for white mushrooms which were plentiful that summer and putting down markers so that I could return later with Zhenya to pick them. A warm breeze was blowing. I saw Zhenya and her mother, both in bright Sunday dresses, coming back from church. Zhenya was holding onto her hat in the wind. Then I could hear them having breakfast on the terrace.
For a carefree person like myself, forever trying to find an excuse for his perpetual idleness, these Sunday mornings on our estates in summer always had a particular charm. When the green garden, still wet with dew, gleams in the sun and seems to be rejoicing; when there is the scent of mignonette and oleander by the house; when the young people have just returned from church and are having breakfast in the garden; when everyone is dressed so charmingly and is so gay; when you know that all these healthy, well-fed, handsome people will be doing nothing all day long – then one wishes life to be always like that. And these were my thoughts as I walked through the garden, ready to wander just like this, idly and aimlessly, all day, all summer.
Zhenya came out with a basket and she looked as if she knew or sensed she would find me in the garden. We gathered mushrooms and when she asked me something she would go on ahead, so that she could see my face.
‘There was a miracle in our village yesterday,’ she said. ‘That lame Pelageya’s been ill the whole year, no doctors or medicine did her any good. But yesterday an old woman recited a spell and she got better.’
‘That’s nothing much,’ I said. ‘You shouldn’t look for miracles only among the sick and old women. Isn’t health a miracle? And life itself? Anything we can’t understand is a miracle.’
‘But aren’t you scared of things you don’t understand?’
‘No, I face up to phenomena I don’t understand boldly and I don’t allow myself to be intimidated. I’m on a higher level than them. Man should consider himself superior to lions, tigers, stars – to everything in nature – even those things he doesn’t understand and thinks of as miraculous. Otherwise he’s not a man but a mouse, afraid of everything.’
Zhenya thought that, as I was an artist, I must know a great deal and could accurately guess what I didn’t know. She wanted me to lead her into the realm of the eternal and beautiful, into that loftier world in which, she fancied, I was quite at home. And she spoke to me of God, of immortality, of the miraculous. I refused to admit that I and my imagination would perish for ever after death. ‘Yes, people are immortal. Yes, eternal life awaits us,’ I replied. And she listened and believed – and she did not ask for proof.
When we were going back to the house she suddenly stopped and said: ‘Lida’s a remarkable person, isn’t she? I love her dearly and I would readily sacrifice my life for her. But tell me,’ Zhenya continued, touching my sleeve with her finger, ‘tell me why you’re always arguing with her? Why do you get so exasperated?’
‘Because she’s in the wrong.’
Zhenya shook her head and tears came into her eyes. ‘I just don’t understand,’ she murmured.
Lida had just returned from somewhere and she stood by the front porch, crop in hand, graceful and beautiful in the sunlight; she was giving orders to one of the workmen. Talking very loudly, she hurriedly saw two or three patients and then, with a preoccupied, busy look, marched through the rooms, opening one cupboard after the other, after which she went up to the attic storey. For a long time they looked for her, to tell her dinner was ready, and by the time she came down we were already finishing our soup. I remember and cherish all these little details and I vividly remember the whole of that day, although it wasn’t particularly eventful. After dinner Zhenya lay in a deep armchair reading, while I sat on the bottom step of the terrace. We said nothing. The sky was overcast and a fine drizzle had set in. It was hot, the wind had long dropped and it seemed the day would never end. Yekaterina Pavlovna came out onto the terrace with a fan – she looked half asleep.
‘Oh, Mama!’ Zhenya said, kissing her hand. ‘It’s not healthy sleeping during the day.’
They adored each other. When one went into the garden, the other would be standing on the terrace looking towards the trees, calling out: ‘Hullo, Zhenya!’ or ‘Mama, where are you?’ They always prayed together, both shared the same faith and they understood one another perfectly, even when they said nothing. And they both had the same attitude towards people. Yekaterina Pavlovna also took to me in no time at all and when I didn’t appear for two or three days she would send someone over to inquire if I was well. She would also gaze admiringly at my sketches and would rattle away about all the latest news – just as readily as Missy; and she often confided family secrets to me.
She revered her elder daughter. Lida never made up to her and would only discuss serious matters with her. She lived a life apart and for her mother and sister she was godlike, something of an enigma, just like an admiral who never leaves his cabin.
‘Our Lida’s a remarkable person, isn’t she?’ her mother would often say.
And now, as the drizzle came down, we talked about Lida.
‘She’s a remarkable person,’ her mother said, adding in a muted, conspiratorial tone as she glanced anxiously over her shoulder: ‘You don’t find many like her. Only I’m getting rather worried, you know. The school, the dispensaries, books – all that’s most commendable, but why go to such extremes? After all, she’s twenty-three, it’s time she thought seriously about herself. What with all those books and dispensaries her life will be over before she even notices it… it’s time she got married.’
Pale from reading, her hair in disarray, Zhenya raised her head a little, looked at her mother and said as if to herself: ‘Mama, everything depends on God’s will.’
And once again she buried herself in her book.
Belokurov arrived in his peasant jerkin and embroidered smock. We played croquet and tenni
s. And then, after dark, we enjoyed a leisurely supper. Again Lida talked about schools and that Balagin, who had the whole district under his thumb. As I left the Volchaninovs that evening I took away with me an impression of a long, idle day – and the sad realization that everything in this world comes to an end, however long it may appear. Zhenya saw us to the gates and, perhaps because she had spent the whole day with me from morning to night, I felt that without her everything was such a bore and I realized how dear this whole charming family was to me. And for the first time that summer I had the urge to paint.
‘Tell me, why do you lead such a boring, drab life?’ I asked Belokurov as we went back. ‘My own life is boring, difficult, monotonous, because I’m an artist. I’m an odd kind of chap; since I was young I’ve been plagued by feelings of hatred, by frustration with myself, by lack of belief in my work. I’ve always been poor, I’m a vagrant. But as for you – you’re a normal, healthy man, a landowner, a squire. So why do you lead such a boring life? Why do you take so little from it? For instance, why have you never fallen in love with Lida or Zhenya?’
‘You’re forgetting that I love another woman,’ Belokurov replied.
He was talking of his companion Lyubov Ivanovna, who lived in the cottage with him. Every day I saw that plump, podgy, self-important woman – rather like a fattened goose – strolling around the garden in a traditional beaded folk costume, always carrying a parasol. The servants were always calling her in for a meal, or for tea. Three years ago she had rented one of the holiday cottages and had simply stayed on to live with Belokurov – for ever, it seemed. She was about ten years older than him and ruled him with a rod of iron – so much so that he had to ask permission whenever he wanted to go somewhere. She often sobbed in a deep, masculine voice and then I would send word that I would move out of the flat if she didn’t stop. And stop she did.
When we were back Belokurov sat on my couch with a pensive frown, while I paced the room, feeling a gentle excitement, as if I were in love. I wanted to talk about the Volchaninovs.
‘Lida could only fall in love with a council worker who is as devoted as she is to hospitals and schools,’ I said. ‘Oh, for a girl like her one would not only do welfare work but even wear out a pair of iron boots, like the girl in the fairy-tale! And there’s Missy. Isn’t she charming, this Missy!’
Belokurov embarked on a long-winded discussion about the malady of the age – pessimism – dragging out those ‘er’s. He spoke confidently and his tone suggested that I was quarrelling with him. Hundreds of miles of bleak, monotonous, scorched steppe can never be so utterly depressing as someone who just sits and chatters away – and you have no idea when he’s going to leave you in peace.
‘Pessimism or optimism have nothing to do with it,’ I said, irritably. ‘The point is, ninety-nine people out of a hundred have no brains.’
Belokurov took this personally and left in a huff.
III
‘The prince is staying in Malozyomovo and sends his regards,’ Lida told her mother. She had just come in from somewhere and was removing her gloves. ‘He had many interesting things to tell us… He promised to raise the question of a clinic for Malozyomovo with the council again, but stressed that there was little hope.’ Turning to me she said: ‘I’m sorry, I keep forgetting that kind of thing’s of no interest to you.’
This really got my back up.
‘Why isn’t it interesting?’ I asked, shrugging my shoulders. ‘You don’t want to know my opinion, but I assure you that the question interests me a great deal.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. In my opinion they don’t need a clinic at Malozyomovo.’
My irritation was infectious. She looked at me, screwed up her eyes and asked: ‘What do they need then? Landscape paintings?’
‘They don’t need landscapes either. They don’t need anything.’
She finished taking off her gloves and unfolded the paper that had just been collected from the post office. A minute later she said quietly, as if trying to control herself: ‘Last week Anna died in childbirth. If there’d been a clinic near her she’d be alive now. And I really do think that our fine gentlemen landscape painters should have some opinions on that score.’
‘I have very definite views on that score, I assure you,’ I replied – and she hid behind her paper as if she didn’t want to listen. ‘To my mind, with things as they are, clinics, schools, libraries, dispensaries only serve to enslave people. The peasants are weighed down by a great chain and instead of breaking this chain you’re only adding new links – that’s what I think.’
She raised her eyes and smiled ironically as I continued, trying to catch the main thread of my argument:
‘What matters is not Anna dying in childbirth, but that all these peasant Annas, Mavras and Pelageyas toil away from dawn to dusk and that this unremitting labour makes them ill. All their lives they go in fear and trembling for their sick and hungry children, dreading death and illness. All their lives they’re being treated for some illness. They fade away before their time and die in filth and stench. And as their children grow up it’s the same old story. And so the centuries pass and untold millions of people live worse than animals, wondering where their next meal will come from, hounded by constant fear. The whole horror of their situation is that they have no time to think of their souls, no time to remember that they were created in the image and likeness of their Creator. Famine, irrational fears, unceasing toil – these are like avalanches, blocking all paths to spiritual activity, which is precisely what distinguishes man from beast and makes life worth living. You come to their aid with hospitals and schools, but this doesn’t free them from their shackles: on the contrary, you enslave them even more since, by introducing fresh prejudices you increase the number of their needs – not to mention the fact that they have to pay the council for their plasters and books – and so they have to slave away even harder.’
‘I’m not going to argue with you,’ Lida said, putting down her paper. ‘I’ve heard it all before. But I’ll say one thing: you can’t just sit twiddling your thumbs. True, we’re not the saviours of humanity and perhaps we make lots of mistakes, but we are doing what we can and we are right. The loftiest, most sacred task for any civilized man is to serve his neighbours – and we try to serve them as best we can. You don’t like it, but there’s no pleasing everyone.’
‘True, Lida, that’s true,’ her mother said.
In Lida’s presence she was always rather timid, glancing nervously at her when she spoke and afraid of saying something superfluous or irrelevant. And she never contradicted her:
‘True, Lida, that’s true,’ she always agreed.
‘Teaching peasants to read and write, books full of wretched maxims and sayings, clinics, cannot reduce either ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows cannot illuminate this huge garden,’ I said. ‘You contribute nothing by meddling in these people’s lives, you’re simply creating new needs and even more reasons for them to slave away.’
‘Oh, God! Surely something has to be done,’ Lida said irritably and from her tone I gathered that she considered my arguments trivial and beneath contempt.
‘The people must be freed from heavy physical work,’ I said. ‘We must lighten their yoke, they must have breathing-space, so that they don’t have to spend all their lives at the stove, wash-tub and in the fields, so that they have time to think of their souls, of God and thus develop their spiritual lives. Man’s true vocation is the life of the spirit, the constant search for truth, for the meaning of life. Liberate them from this rough, brutish labour, let them feel they are free – then you’ll see what a farce these dispensaries and books really are. Once a man recognizes his true vocation, only religion, science, art can satisfy him – not all this nonsense of yours.’
‘Free them from labour!’ Lida laughed. ‘Can that be possible?’
‘It can. You must take some of their labour on your own shoulders. If all
of us town and country dwellers unanimously agreed to divide among ourselves the labour that is normally expended by humanity on the satisfaction of its physical needs, then each of us would probably have to work no more than two or three hours a day. Just imagine if all of us, rich and poor, worked only two or three hours a day and had the rest of the time to ourselves. Imagine if we invented labour-saving machines and tried to reduce our needs to the absolute minimum so as to be less dependent on our bodies and to be able to work even less. We would harden ourselves and our children so that they would no longer fear hunger or cold. We wouldn’t be constantly worrying about their health, unlike Anna, Mavra and Pelageya. Imagine if we no longer doctored ourselves, didn’t maintain dispensaries, tobacco factories, distilleries – how much more leisure time we’d finally have at our disposal! All of us, working together, would be able to devote our leisure to science and art. Just as peasants sometimes mend roads, working as a community, so all of us, as one big community, would search for the truth and the meaning of life: and the truth would be discovered very quickly, man would rid himself of this constant, agonizing, oppressive fear of death – and even from death itself – of that I’m convinced.’
‘But you’re contradicting yourself,’ Lida said. ‘You keep going on about science and art, yet you yourself reject literacy.’
‘The kind of literacy, when a man has nothing else to read except pub signs and sometimes books he doesn’t understand, has been with us since Ryurik’s4 time. Gogol’s Petrushka’s5 been able to read for absolutely ages, whereas our villages are exactly the same as they were in Ryurik’s time. It isn’t literacy that we need, but freedom to develop our spiritual faculties as widely as possible. We don’t need schools – we need universities.’
‘And you reject medicine as well?’
‘Yes. Medicine might be necessary for the study of diseases as natural phenomena, but not for their treatment. If you want to cure people you shouldn’t treat the illness but its cause. Take away the main cause – physical labour – and there won’t be any more diseases. I don’t recognize the healing arts,’ I continued excitedly. ‘Genuine science and art don’t strive towards temporary, personal ends, but towards the universal and eternal: they seek truth and the meaning of life, they seek God, the soul. But if you reduce them to the level of everyday needs, to the mundane, to dispensaries and libraries, they only complicate life and make it more difficult. We have loads of doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, lots of people who can read and write, but there’s a complete lack of biologists, mathematicians, philosophers and poets. One’s entire intellect, one’s entire spiritual energy has been used up satisfying transient, temporary needs. Scholars, writers and artists are working away – thanks to them life’s comforts increase with every day. Our physical needs multiply, whereas the truth is still far, far off and man still remains the most predatory and filthy of animals and everything conspires towards the larger part of mankind degenerating and losing its vitality. In such conditions an artist’s life has no meaning and the more talented he is the stranger and more incomprehensible his role, since, on closer inspection, it turns out that, by supporting the existing order, he’s working for the amusement of this rapacious, filthy animal. I don’t want to work … and I shan’t! I don’t need a thing, the whole world can go to hell!’
The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904 Page 5
