He also happened to recall how, seventeen years ago, his late brother and Anna Pavlovna herself had seen him off. Naturally, they were unable to do anything for him in St Petersburg, and he had had to make his own way, but he couldn’t help remembering her tears, how she had given him her blessing like a mother, her kindness, her pies and, finally, her parting words: “When Sasha grows up” – he was then a three-year-old child – “perhaps you too, my dear, will be kind to him…” At this point Pyotr Ivanych rose and strode quickly to the entrance hall…
“Vasily!” he said. “When my nephew arrives, let him in, and go and see if that room upstairs is free, the one that had recently been rented out. If it is free, then tell them that I want to reserve it for myself. Oh yes, and these presents, what are we going to do with them?”
“Our shopkeeper saw them when they were being brought up, and he asked whether we could spare him the honey. ‘I’ll give you a good price for it,’ he says; and he’ll take the raspberries too.”
“Excellent! Let him have them; but where will we put the cloth? Couldn’t it be used for covers? So put away the cloth and the preserves – we can eat them, they look decent.”
Pyotr Ivanych was just about to start shaving when Alexander Fyodorych appeared. He was on the point of throwing his arms around his uncle’s neck, whereupon Pyotr Ivanych grasped his nephew’s tender, youthful hand in his powerful grip, thereby keeping him at a distance, as if the idea was that he wanted to give himself the pleasure of taking a good look at him, rather than squelching his affectionate impulse by interposing a handshake.
“What your mother wrote was absolutely true,” he said. “You’re the living image of your late father: I would have recognized you anywhere. In fact, you’re even better-looking. Anyway, you won’t mind if I continue shaving; you just sit down here where I can see you, and we can chat.”
So Pyotr Ivanych carried on doing what he was doing as if there was no one else there, moving his tongue from side to side as he soaped his cheeks. Alexander was so taken aback by this treatment that he was at a loss about how to start the conversation. He put down his uncle’s chilly reception to the fact that he had not come straight to him.
“So, how is your mother? Is she well? I imagine she must have aged somewhat?” his uncle asked, grimacing into the shaving mirror.
“She is well, thank God, and sends you her greetings, and so does Auntie Maria Pavlovna,” Alexander Fyodorych said shyly. “Auntie told me to embrace you,” he said as he stood up, and made as if to kiss his uncle on the cheek, the head, the shoulder or indeed anything within range.
“At her age, your auntie should have more sense, but I see that she’s just as foolish as she was twenty years ago…”
Nonplussed, Alexander retreated back to where he had been sitting.
“Did you get a letter, Uncle?” he asked.
“Yes, I did.”
“Vasily Tikhonych Zayezzhalov wants your help with a problem…”
“Yes, he wrote to me about it… Are there really such asses still around in your village?”
Alexander was so confounded by his uncle’s response, that he couldn’t even gather his wits.
“I’m sorry, Uncle…” he began nervously.
“What about?”
“For not coming straight to you, and first putting up at the coaching inn… I didn’t know how to find your apartment…”
“No need to apologize. You did the right thing. I don’t know what your mother was thinking of, sending you here without even knowing if you could stay here or not. As you can see it’s just a bachelor’s flat – just for one person – a hallway, a drawing room, a dining room, a study and a workroom, plus a dressing room, and a bathroom – there’s no other room. We’d get in each other’s way. Anyway, I’ve found a place for you to stay in this building…”
“Oh, Uncle, how can I thank you for such thoughtfulness?”
Once again he jumped up from where he was sitting in order to express his gratitude both verbally and physically.
“Be careful, be careful, don’t touch me,” said his uncle, “the razor’s terribly sharp, and before you know it you’ll be cutting yourself and me.”
Alexander realized that in spite of all his efforts on that day he would never succeed in embracing and hugging the uncle he so admired, and decided to try again on another occasion.
“The room is very cheerful,” Pyotr Ivanych began, “the view through the windows is of a wall, but you’re certainly not going to be sitting by the window all day; if you’re at home, you’ll be busy doing something, and won’t have time to be gazing at the window. And it’s not expensive: just forty roubles a month. There’s an entrance hall for your servant. You’ll have to learn to live by yourself without a nanny right from the start, and how to run a household – in other words, provide your own food and drink – in a word, create a home of your own, or un chez-soi,* as the French say. You’ll be able to invite any visitors you choose… and incidentally, when I’m dining at home, you are welcome to join me, and at other times – young people around here usually eat at a tavern, but I advise you to send out for your food: it’s quieter at home, and you won’t run the risk of running into undesirables. All right?”
“I’m really grateful, Uncle…”
“What for? You’re family. I’m just doing my duty. Now, I’m going to get dressed and go out; I have my work, and a factory to run…”
“I didn’t know you had a factory, Uncle.”
“Glass and porcelain; but it’s not mine alone, I have three partners.”
“Is it doing well?”
“Yes, reasonably; we sell mostly to neighbouring provinces at trade fairs. For the last two years business has been booming! If we do as well for the next five years, so much the better. One of the partners is not too reliable – he only knows how to spend, but I manage to keep him in hand. Well, I’m on my way now. Why don’t you go out and look around the city, walk around, have a meal somewhere, and in the evening come back here and we’ll have tea? I’ll be at home and we can talk. Vasily! Show him the room. And help him to settle in.”
“So that’s the way it is in St Petersburg…” thought Alexander, sitting in his new home. “If my own uncle is like this, then what are the others going to be like?…”
Young Aduyev paced back and forth in his room, lost in thought, while Yevsei moved around it putting things in order and talking to himself.
“What kind of place is this?” he grumbled. “Pyotr Ivanych has his own kitchen, but would you believe, the stove is only heated once a month, and the servants have to eat out. Good Lord, what strange people! And they’re what people call Petersburgers! Where we come from, even dogs have their own bowls to feed from.”
Alexander, it seems, was of the same opinion, although he didn’t actually say anything. He went to the window, but there was nothing to see but roofs and chimneys, and the blackened, dirty sides of the brick houses… and when he compared that sight with what he had seen two weeks ago from the window of his home in the country, it made him sad.
He went out into the street: nothing but hustle and bustle, everyone rushing somewhere or other, totally self-absorbed, hardly sparing a glance for the people they passed – and even then it was only to avoid bumping into one another. He thought of his provincial town, where everyone you happened to run into had something of interest to tell you. Here was Ivan Ivanych on his way to meet Pyotr Petrovich – and everyone in town knew why. There was Maria Martynova on her way back from vespers, and Afanasy Savich going fishing. Over there, the constable was galloping like mad from the governor’s house to the doctor, and everyone knew that Her Excellency was about to give birth, although in the opinion of the gossips and old ladies it was not nice to anticipate such events. Everyone would be asking “Is it a boy or a girl?” Young ladies would be preparing their Sunday-best caps. Over here, Matvei Ma
tveich would be stepping out with a stout stick sometime between five and six, and everyone knew that it was for his evening constitutional, just as everyone knew that in any case he was suffering from indigestion and would stop by at the old councillor’s who, as everyone also knew, would be drinking tea at that time. You couldn’t pass anyone in the street without a bow and exchanging a word or two, and even if there was someone you didn’t stop to greet, you knew who he was, where he was going and why, and it was clear from the look in his eye that he too knew equally well who you were, where you were going and why. And even when people who didn’t know each other and had never seen each other before passed on the street, they would stop and turn around a couple of times, so that when they got home they could describe the clothes and gait of this stranger, and everyone would start speculating and trying to guess who he was, where he was from and what he was doing. But here it took only a look to make someone move out of the way, as if everyone else was an enemy.
To start with, Alexander would stare with typical provincial curiosity at every passing stranger and every respectably dressed person, thinking that they must all be some minister or ambassador, or perhaps a writer: “Could he be so-and-so?” he thought. “Or perhaps that other one?” But soon the novelty wore off – since he seemed to be running into ministers, writers or ambassadors at every step.
When he looked at the houses, that was even drearier, and he was oppressed by those monotonous stone piles which, like colossal mausoleums, seemed to form a single unending, uninterrupted mass. “I’m almost at the end of the street now,” he thought, “and then there’ll be some relief for my eyes,” he thought, “at least a hill, some greenery or a broken-down fence.” But no, once again he was confronted with the same stone façade of identical houses with four rows of windows. That street too came to an end, but only to be replaced by a further series of identical houses. Whether you looked right or left, your way was barred by house after house after house, pile of stone after pile of stone, each one the same as the one before… no empty space anywhere to give your eyes a rest; you were blocked on every side – and you felt that people’s thoughts and feelings were similarly limited and confined.
Such were the first grim impressions of the provincial in St Petersburg. It was all so bewildering and depressing. No one paid him any attention: he simply felt lost here. There was no novelty, no variety of any kind to distract or entertain him, not even the crowds. His provincial parochialism declared war on everything he saw when he compared it with what he saw at home. He was lost in thought, and started imagining that he was back in his home town. What a delight it was to see! One house with a gabled roof and a little front garden with acacias. On the roof a dovecote had been built; the merchant Izyumin was a pigeon fancier and liked to race them, and that’s why he went and built that pigeon loft on the roof. Morning and evening you would find him up there on the roof in his nightcap and dressing gown, whistling and waving a stick with a rag tied on the end. Another house was lit up like a torch; windows practically filled the four sides of the house, which had a flat roof and had been built long ago; you had the feeling that at any moment the house would collapse or set fire to itself; the colour of its timbers had faded to a light grey.
You would be afraid to live in that house, but people actually lived there. At times, it is true, the owner would look at the sagging ceiling, shake his head and mutter: “Will it last until the spring?” followed by: “Well, let’s hope so!” He continued living there, not so much afraid for himself, but rather for his pocket. Next door was the eccentric house of the doctor, painted a rakish red and extending in a semicircle with two wings built like sentry boxes – and all hidden behind greenery was another house. The back of the house gave onto the street and was protected by a fence which stretched for two versts. Through the fence you could see red apples peeping out – a temptation for the small boys. The houses all kept a respectable distance from the churches, which were surrounded by thick grass and tombstones. As for office buildings, you could see that they were – well, office buildings, and no one went near them unless they really needed to, while here, in the capital, they looked no different from the buildings where people lived – and, what is worse, there were houses with shops inside them – what a disgrace! If you were walking in our town, after just two or three streets, you would begin to smell fresh air and find wattle fences, and behind them kitchen gardens, and then even an open field where spring crops were growing. Here you would find quiet and stillness – and yes, tedium; both in the street and among the people – that blissful inactivity! Everyone lives as they please, and there are no crowds; even the chickens wander freely through the streets; goats and cattle nibble the grass, and the little ones fly kites. But being here – it makes him so homesick! And this provincial sighs for the fence outside his window, for that dusty, dirty road, that wobbly bridge, the sign outside the inn. It pains him to see that St Isaac’s Cathedral is superior to the one in his home town, and that the hall of the Assembly of the Nobility is bigger than the one back home. When faced by such comparisons, he maintains a resentful silence, although sometimes he dares to say that a piece of such and such cloth, or a certain kind of wine can be had where he comes from at a lower price and of better quality, and that, where he comes from, people wouldn’t even look at delicacies from overseas like big crabs or shells, and that you can buy all these fabrics and knick-knacks from foreigners if you want, as long as you don’t mind being fleeced by them and are content to be taken in! But how suddenly he cheers up when he compares caviar, pears and a certain kind of bread and observes that they are all better in his home town!
“You mean that’s what you call a pear?” he would say. “Where I come from even the servants wouldn’t touch them!”
The provincial feels even worse when he enters one of these houses bearing a letter from back home. He thinks that he will be met with wide-open arms, that they won’t know how to welcome him warmly enough, what chair will be comfortable enough for him, how to entertain him hospitably enough; they will somehow succeed in worming out of him what his favourite dishes are. He imagines how embarrassed he will feel at the attentions lavished upon him, and how finally he will cast aside all conventional constraints and rush to embrace his host and hostess and start calling them by their first names as if they had known each other for twenty years – and they would all end up drinking liqueurs, and maybe even burst into song…
Some hope! They hardly spare him a glance: they frown, apologize for being so busy. If they need to see him about something, it has to be at a time when they are not having dinner or supper, and they have never heard of such a thing as an aperitif, or a little vodka with some appetizers. His host avoids any attempt to embrace him, and gives his guest strange looks. In the room next door, cutlery and glassware can be heard tinkling, and you would think they might invite him, but no: they do their best to hint that he should be leaving. Everything is under lock and key, and doorbells everywhere. All that seems so inhospitable! And what cold, unfriendly faces! But where I come from, you enter boldly, and if they have already eaten, they will start all over again just for the sake of the guest; the samovar stays on the table from morning until night, and even the shops don’t have doorbells. Everyone kisses and embraces everyone within range. Neighbours there are real neighbours, neighbours heart and soul, and family members are true kith and kin and would die for one another… it makes your heart sink to think of it.
When Alexander reached Admiralty Square, he was dumbfounded and stood stock-still for an hour in front of the Bronze Horseman, but not with bitterness in his heart like poor Yevgeny,* but in a state of exaltation. He looked at the Neva and the surrounding buildings, and his eyes sparkled. He was suddenly ashamed of his enthusiasm for those wobbly bridges, those front gardens and those dilapidated fences. He began to feel cheerful and light-hearted, and he began to view the hustle and bustle and the crowded streets in a different light, and glimpsed a
glimmer of hope, hope which had been suppressed by his previous dispiriting impressions, that a new life had opened up its arms to him and was beckoning him towards the unknown. His heart began to beat faster. He saw a future of noble endeavour, lofty aspirations, and stepped out boldly along the Nevsky Prospekt, seeing himself now as a citizen of this new world. His head full of these dreams, he returned home.
At eleven o’clock that evening his uncle sent to invite him to take tea with him.
“I’m just back from the theatre,” his uncle greeted him, lying on his divan.
“What a pity you didn’t tell me before, Uncle, I would have gone with you.”
“I was in the stalls; where would you have sat – on my lap?” said Pyotr Ivanych. “Why don’t you go tomorrow by yourself?”
“It’s no fun being alone in a crowd – there’s no one to share your impressions with…”
“You shouldn’t feel like that! In time, you’ll have to learn to cope, to feel and to think on your own – in short, to live on your own. What’s more, you have to be appropriately dressed to go to the theatre.”
Alexander inspected his clothes, and found his uncle’s remark surprising.
“What’s inappropriate about the clothes I’m wearing?” he thought. “A dark-blue frock coat and trousers to match…”
“I have a lot of clothes, Uncle,” he said, “made by Königstein; he’s our governor’s tailor.”
The Same Old Story Page 5
