Alexander sat there, confused and gloomy. Yevsei tiptoed in with his hand inside the boot he was carrying.
“Excuse me, sir, but would you mind taking a look at this?” he said deferentially. “This is great polish: it shines like a mirror, and it only costs twenty-five roubles.”
Alexander roused himself and looked uncomprehendingly at the boot and then at Yevsei.
“Get out, you fool!” he said.
“Should I send it to our village?” Yevsei persisted.
“Get out! I’m telling you, get out!” Alexander shouted, almost in tears. “Stop badgering me, you’ll send me to my grave with your boots!… You’re a barbarian!”
Yevsei made a prompt exit into the hall.
Chapter 4
“Why doesn’t Alexander come to see us?” Pyotr Ivanych asked his wife after returning home one day. “It’s been three months since I’ve seen him.”
“I’ve given up hope of ever seeing him,” she replied.
“What can be the matter with him? Not in love again, is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he well?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Please write and tell him I need to speak to him. There are changes going on at his office. I can’t understand his lack of concern.”
“I’ve already written to invite him a dozen times and he just says he has no time, when all he’s doing is playing draughts with some strange types or going fishing; why don’t you go round to see him yourself and find out what’s going on?”
“No, I don’t want to. Send one of the servants instead.”
“Alexander still won’t come.”
So they sent a servant, who returned very quickly. “Well, is he at home?” asked Pyotr Ivanych.
“Yes, sir. He sends his greetings.”
“What is he doing?”
“Lying down on his divan.”
“You mean at this hour of the day?”
“He’s always lying there, you see.”
“Well, is he sleeping?”
“Oh no, sir. I thought at first that the young gentleman was sleeping, but his eyes were open, and he was staring at the ceiling.”
Pyotr Ivanych shrugged his shoulders.
“Will he be coming here?”
“Oh no, sir. ‘Give them my greetings!’ he says. ‘And give my uncle my apologies, and say that I’m not feeling too well.’ And he told me to give you his greetings, madam.”
“What’s wrong with him now? Really, it’s surprising! What’s he turning into? Tell them to keep the horses harnessed. I’ll just have to go round there myself – but this is really the last time.”
And Pyotr Ivanych did find him on the divan. When he saw his uncle come in, he sat up, but stayed sitting down.
“You’re not well?” asked Pyotr Ivanych.
“So-so…” Alexander replied, yawning.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“You have no trouble just doing nothing?”
“No trouble at all.”
“There’s talk today that Ivanov is leaving your office.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Who’s going to replace him?”
“Nichenko, they say.”
“And what about you?”
“Me, no.”
“What do mean, ‘no’? Why not you?”
“They didn’t offer me the position. What can I do? I suppose I’m not the right man for the job.”
“Come now, Alexander, you should get busy and go and see the director!”
“No,” said Alexander, shaking his head.
“It looks as if you don’t care?”
“I don’t.”
“But this is the third time you’ve been passed over.”
“Who cares? So what!”
“Well, we’ll see what you say when your former subordinate starts giving you orders, and you have to stand up and bow when he comes in.”
“I’ll just stand up and bow.”
“And what about your pride?”
“I don’t have any.”
“But you must have some interests in life?”
“None at all. I used to have, but not now.”
“Impossible: old interests are replaced by new ones. How come you give up your interests, but others don’t? Aren’t you a bit young for that? Why, you’re not even thirty…”
Alexander shrugged.
Pyotr Ivanych no longer had any wish to prolong the conversation. He would have dismissed the whole thing as sheer childishness, but he knew that when he got home there would be no way of avoiding his wife’s questions, so he continued in spite of himself.
“Why don’t you find some way of amusing yourself, seek some company?” he said. “Or find something to read?”
“I don’t feel like it, Uncle.”
“People are beginning to talk about you – things like ‘You know, you’re mooning because you’re in love, God knows what you’re up to, or you’ve started hanging around with some strange types…’ My own guess would be that last one.”
“Let them say whatever they want.”
“Listen Alexander, joking aside, none of this stuff is important; see people or avoid them, seek company or do without it – none of that matters; but remember: you, like anyone else, have to make a career of some kind. Don’t you ever think about that?”
“What do you mean, ‘think about it’? I’ve already done it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve already mapped out my sphere of activity, and I intend to stay within it. Right here, I am the master, and this is where my career is.”
“Laziness, in other words.”
“Perhaps.”
“You have no right to lounge around while you have your strength. Have you done what you set out to do?”
“I’m doing it. No one can accuse me of idleness. In the morning, I work at the office – and to do any more than that would be sheer extravagance, superfluous effort. Why should I exert myself?”
“Everyone exerts themselves in one way or another: one person because he considers it his duty to do whatever his ability allows him to do; someone else does it for money; another one does it because he wants to be somebody… Why should you be the exception?”
“Ambition, money! Especially money! What for? I’m fed and clothed. That’s all I need.”
“And badly dressed too!” his uncle remarked. “And that’s all that you consider necessities?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“But what about the intellectual and the higher pleasures – art for instance?…” Pyotr Ivanych was starting to say, mimicking Alexander’s tone. “You can move forward, your goal is loftier, your calling is a nobler one… Have you forgotten that you strive for nobler goals?”
“Forget all that!” said Alexander, clearly provoked. “That’s pretty strange talk, coming from you, Uncle! Was that for my benefit? If so, you’re wasting your time. Yes, I did aim higher – and what came of it?”
“What I do remember is that right away you wanted to become a minister, and later a writer. But when you saw that the path to that lofty calling was a long and arduous one, and that to be a writer you needed talent, you beat a retreat. A lot of young men like you come here with these fancy ideas, but cannot see that what they have to do is right under their noses. But the moment they have to write a report or something – well, what do you see? They’re just not up to it. Of course, I’m not talking about you: you’ve proved that you can knuckle down to your work and make something of yourself in time. Of course that’s tedious and means a lot of waiting. When we want everything right away and it doesn’t happen, we’re down in the dumps.”
“But I don’t want to aim any higher: I just want to sta
y where I am. Don’t I have the right to choose my work – whether it measures up to my abilities or not? What does it matter, as long as I do my work conscientiously and responsibly? If I’m criticized because my abilities don’t justify higher ambitions, that wouldn’t hurt me a bit, if it were the truth. You’ve said yourself that there is poetry in the humblest of occupations, and here you are reproaching me for choosing precisely that. Who is going to prevent me from climbing down several rungs of the ladder and stop at the rung which suits me best? I’m not interested in any higher-level occupation – are you listening? I’m just not interested!”
“I heard you! I’m not deaf yet. It’s just that everything you say is feeble sophistry.”
“I don’t care. I’ve found my place, and I intend to stay in it. I’ve found some simple unsophisticated people, and it doesn’t matter if they’re intellectually limited; I play draughts and go fishing with them – and it’s fine! Even if, as you see it, I’ll be punished for it and will be giving up the glittering prizes, the money, the honours, the importance – all those things which appeal so much to you, I renounce them for ever…”
“Alexander, it pleases you to pretend that you’re content and indifferent to all those things, but there’s a hint of bitterness in your words – in fact on your lips they sound more like tears than words. There’s a lot of bile inside you, but you don’t know who to vent it on, because you are the only one to blame.”
“So what?”
“What is it that you want? Everyone must want something.”
“I want people to stop trying to force me out of the dark place I have chosen, a place where I don’t have to bother about anything and where I can live in peace.”
“You really call that living?”
“In my view, the life you live is not living, therefore I’m right too.”
“What you want is to remake life to suit your own wishes – yes, I can see it. In that life of yours, lovers and friends stroll hand in hand amidst rose bushes…”
Alexander said nothing.
Pyotr Ivanych regarded him in silence. He had lost weight once again. His eyes were sunken. His cheeks and his forehead were beginning to show premature wrinkles.
His uncle was suddenly afraid. He didn’t really believe there was such a thing as psychological suffering, but feared that under this desolation there lurked some incipient physical illness. “Maybe,” he thought, “the boy is going out of his mind, and then I would have to deal with his mother – all that writing back and forth – and before you know it she would even turn up here.”
“Yes, I can see that you are disillusioned,” he said, thinking at the same time: “What if I could restore his cherished old ideas to him? Wait a minute! I’ll put on an act…”
“Listen, Alexander!” he said. “Your morale is very low. You must shake off this apathy. It’s doing you no good. And where does it come from? Perhaps you’ve taken too seriously to heart the things that I’ve thoughtlessly said to you from time to time about love and friendship. I wasn’t entirely serious when I spoke, and was really doing it to cool your ardour, which seems somehow out of place in our more practical times, especially here in St Petersburg, where everything is levelled down, fashions as well as passions, practical matters as well as pleasures – everything is carefully modulated, weighed, pondered and assessed… Everything now has had recognized recognized limits imposed on it. Why should one person be so visibly out of step with all the rest of us? Do you think that I’m really so unfeeling that I don’t recognize love? Love is a wonderful feeling: there is nothing more sacred than the union of two hearts – or friendship, for example. It is my inner conviction that a feeling must be permanent, everlasting…”
Alexander burst out laughing.
“What is it?” asked Pyotr Ivanych.
“What’s all this crazy talk, Uncle? Why don’t you send for a cigar? We could have a smoke; you’ll keep on talking, and I’ll sit and listen.”
“What is the matter with you?”
“Why, nothing. So you’ve decided to make fun of me! And to think you were once thought to be an intelligent man! Toying with me, as if I were a plaything – it’s offensive! What was the use of that school, which I’ve now left? All that pontificating you went in for! As if I didn’t have eyes in my head. It was all just a party trick, and I saw right through it.”
“I see I’ve made a hash of it,” Pyotr Ivanych thought to himself. “Better let the wife handle it.”
“Come and see us – my wife would particularly like to see you.”
“I can’t, Uncle.”
“It’s not very nice of you to forget her.”
“Maybe even downright bad, but for God’s sake forgive me, and don’t expect me any time soon. Give me some time, and I’ll come.”
“Well, have it your way,” said Pyotr Ivanych, and he waved goodbye and went home.
He told his wife that he was giving up on Alexander, and was leaving him to his own devices. He, Pyotr Ivanych, had done everything he could, and was now washing his hands of him.
After breaking free from Yulia, Alexander had launched himself into a frenzy of pleasures, frequently quoting a well-known poet:
Pour, pour a glass of sizzling wine!
And let the quiet stream of oblivion
For a time, staunch the cruel torment of my soul.
Let’s return to where joy breathes,
Where seethes the joyful maelstrom of gaiety and noise,
Where life is not lived, but life and youth is spent
Amidst frolics and games at the table of pleasure,
For an hour carried away by the illusion of happiness.
I am steeped in empty dreams,
Reconciled with fate by wine.
I will assuage my troubled heart.
I will not allow my thoughts to soar
And will not let my eyes gaze
Upon the soft radiance of the heavens.*
He fell in with a gang of friends and their constant companion – the bottle.
They saw their reflections first in the foaming liquid, and later in the glossy surface of their patent-leather boots. “Away with sorrow,” they cried as they caroused, “away with woe! Let’s spend, destroy, incinerate and carouse away our life and youth. Hurrah!” Glasses and bottles were hurled to the floor and shattered.
For a time, freedom, rowdiness and carefree living made him forget Yulia and his disenchantment, but the endless round of dinners and restaurants, the same old faces with their muddy eyes, the same old mindless, drunken gibberish of the same companions day after day – not to mention his still chronically upset stomach – no, he decided, this was not for him. Alexander’s delicate physical and psychological constitution was predisposed to a state of melancholy and depression, and these constant high jinks proved too much for him.
He fled from the “frolics and games at the table of pleasure” and ended up back in his room alone with himself and his neglected books. But his book tumbled from his hands, and his pen remained resistant to inspiration. Schiller, Goethe, Byron revealed to him only the dark side of humanity – the bright side he failed to notice: he had no time for that.
But how happy he had been in that room at one time! Then he had not been alone; there was a beautiful invisible presence which kept him company and hovered over him by day as he sat diligently at his work and kept vigil at his bedside by night. His companions there were his dreams: the future was cloaked in fog, but it was not the oppressive kind which brought foul weather in its wake, but more of a morning mist which heralded a bright dawn. Behind that mist something was hidden… happiness, most likely. But now? The room itself, and indeed his whole world, was empty – except for cold, and the bitterness of regret.
As he contemplated his life, interrogating his heart and his head, he found to his horror that not a single dream, not a ray of hope remained in either place
. All that was now behind him: the fog had cleared – before him stretched raw reality, as boundless as the steppe. Oh God, the sheer immensity of that space! What a grim and joyless prospect! The past had perished, the future had been destroyed, happiness did not exist. All that was left was a nightmare – yet life had to be lived!
What it was that he wanted, he himself had no idea. It was as if his head was shrouded in fog. He didn’t sleep, but was drifting in some kind of oblivion. Oppressive thoughts crowded into his head.
What was there that could divert him? Enthralling hopes – there were none! Carefree respites – no! He could foresee everything that lay ahead. Esteem, striving for honours? What did that offer him? Was it worth spending twenty, thirty years butting his head against the ice like a fish? Did that prospect warm his heart? Does your soul rejoice when there are some who bow and scrape in your presence, all the time thinking, “To hell with him!”?
Love? Oh, not that again! He knew it inside out – and anyway he had lost the ability to love. His memory obligingly – and however ironically – brought to mind Nadenka, but not the innocent, open-hearted Nadenka – his memory was not that obliging – but unfailingly Nadenka the deceiver, together with that whole setting: the trees, the path, the flowers – and in the middle of it all that snake in the grass, with that smile which had become so familiar, with its tint of rapture and its hue of shame – but for another, not for him. He clutched at his heart with a groan.
“Friendship,” he thought, “another kind of folly! I’ve been through it all. There’s nothing new, and the past cannot be recaptured; yet life goes on.”
He no longer believed in anyone or anything, he could no longer lose himself in pleasure; he would get a taste of it, like someone who tastes a favourite dish, but without relish, knowing that it will only be followed by tedium, and that nothing can fill that inner void. Believe in feeling? It always lets you down, causes you emotional agitation and leaves you with more scars than before. Looking at people linked by love, carried away by sheer rapture, he would smile ironically and think: “Wait until you come to your senses – that first rapture will soon give way to jealousy, reconciliation and tears. Living together, you will end up bored to death with each other and part – the two of you in tears. You will come together again – worse still. You are crazy! You will fight all the time, there will be jealousy, followed by momentary reconciliation, followed in turn by even fiercer brawling; so much for their love, their devotion! Yet together, foaming at the mouth, sometimes with tears of despair in their eyes, they persist in calling it ‘happiness’! And as for that friendship of yours… throw down a bone and watch your dogs fight over it.”*
The Same Old Story Page 30
