The Same Old Story

by Ivan Goncharov

  “And remember how you wanted to find love: writing bad verse, and all that preposterous talk, and that Grunya of yours – if that’s her name – all of which would bore anyone to death. And that’s the kind of thing you thought would captivate women?”

  “Oh, and what do you think works?” Lizaveta Alexandrovna asked drily.

  “God! My back feels like someone’s stabbing me!” Pyotr Ivanych groaned.

  “You also dinned it into me,” Alexander continued, “that there is no such thing as deep devotion or true affinity: there is just habit…”

  Lizaveta Alexandrovna watched her husband silently and intently.

  “You must understand – the fact is that I was telling you that so that… you know… Ouch! My back!”

  “Yes, you were telling that,” Alexander went on, “to a twenty-year-old youth for whom love was everything, and whose every action, every goal, revolved around that emotion, and for whom… love alone was the be-all and end-all of existence.”

  “You must have been born two hundred years ago!” Pyotr Ivanych mumbled. “In some Never-Never Land.”

  “You expounded to me,” Alexander persisted, “your theory of love – deception, betrayal, indifference… and why? I knew all about that before I first fell in love, and so, even when I was in love, I started analysing it, like a student dissecting a body under the guidance of his professor, and instead of seeing the beauty of its anatomy, he sees only muscles and nerves…”

  “Nevertheless, I remember, that didn’t prevent you from losing your head over that… what’s-her-name… Dashenka, was it?”

  “But you didn’t allow me to go my own way and find myself betrayed; otherwise I might have seen in Nadenka’s betrayal of me an unfortunate happenstance, and would have waited until such time as I would have no need of love, but you came up right away with your theory and convinced me that it was something which was bound to happen. So at twenty-five years of age I had lost my faith in happiness and in life itself, and my heart had dried up. As for friendship, you rejected it and called it too a matter of habit, and even described yourself, probably in jest, as my best friend, because, after all, you had successfully proved that there was no such thing as friendship.”

  Pyotr Ivanych listened while rubbing his back with one hand. He entered his objections nonchalantly like a man who thought that he could demolish his opponent’s accusations with a single word.

  “And you understood friendship very well,” he said. “What you wanted from a friend was that same comedy which we are told was played in ancient times by those two fools… what were their names? – where one of them agreed to take the place of the other as a hostage, and then the other one came back to see him.* If everyone behaved this way, the whole world would become one great madhouse!”

  “I loved people,” Alexander continued, “I believed in their virtues, I saw them as my brothers, was ready to reach out and embrace them warmly—”

  “Yes, of course, what could be more important! I remember your embraces,” Pyotr Ivanych broke in. “I grew heartily sick of them.”

  “And you made it very clear how little you thought of them. Instead of guiding my heart in my attachments, you taught me to analyse, to examine, to be on my guard against people; I followed your advice – and stopped loving them!”

  “How was I to understand you? You know how impulsive you are; I thought that it would only make you nicer to them. I do know them, so I didn’t start hating them…”

  “So, you’re telling me that you love people?” Lizaveta Alexandrovna asked him.

  “I’ve… got used to them.”

  “Got used to them!” she repeated tonelessly.

  “And he would have too,” said Pyotr Ivanych, “but he had already been spoilt rotten back there in the country by his aunt and those yellow flowers, and that’s why he has found it so hard to evolve.”

  “But afterwards I still believed in myself,” Alexander began again. “You showed me that I was worse than others, and I learnt to hate myself.”

  “If you had taken a more detached view of things, you would have seen that you were neither better nor worse, and that was what I was asking of you; and then you wouldn’t have started hating others or yourself, and would have learnt to be able to take human weaknesses in your stride, and be a little more attentive to your own. Now, I know what I’m worth, and see that I’m not a good person, but I confess, I do love myself.”

  “Oh, so when it comes to yourself it’s ‘love’, and not ‘getting used to’!” Lizaveta Alexandrovna remarked coldly.

  “Oh, my back really hurts!” Pyotr Ivanych groaned.

  “And finally, at one fell swoop, without warning, without pity, you destroyed my most cherished dream. I thought I had inside me a spark of poetic talent: you ruthlessly made it clear to me that I wasn’t born to be a high priest of the fine arts, and painfully extracted that splinter from my heart and offered me work that I detested. If it hadn’t been for you I would have been writing—”

  “…and would have become known to the public as a writer with no talent…” Pyotr Ivanych cut in.

  “What do I care about the public? I was doing it for myself, I would have attributed my failures to malice, envy and ill will, and would eventually have resigned myself to the conclusion that there was no point in continuing, and would have taken up some other activity of my own accord. So why are you so surprised that, now that I know all there is to know, I have lost heart?”

  “Well, what do you have to say?” asked Lizaveta Alexandrovna.

  “I’ve no wish to say anything; what can one say in response to such nonsense? Am I to blame for the fact that when you came here, you imagined that you would find nothing but yellow flowers, love and friendship, and that all that people do here is either write poetry or listen to it – and here and there, just for a change, they try their hands at prose? I tried to make you understand that people everywhere, and especially here, have to work even until their backs ache… that there are no yellow flowers, just money and promotions – which is a lot better! That’s all I wanted you to understand! I didn’t despair of your ever coming to understand what life is like, especially as it is currently understood. I’ve seen for myself that even you have come to understand that life has few flowers and little poetry to offer, and have come to imagine life to be a great mistake – and that since you see this, you are entitled to spend your time being bored, while others cannot see this, and therefore enjoy life to the full. Well, what is it that dissatisfies you, what is it that you lack? Someone else in your place would be thanking his lucky stars. You’ve been spared poverty, ill health, and nothing really tragic has happened to you. So what is it you don’t have? Is it love? You feel you haven’t had your fair share? You’ve been in love twice, and your love has been returned, but you’ve also been let down, so you’ve broken even. We’ve concluded that you do have friends, the kind of friends that not many people have – real friends! Of course, they won’t necessarily go through fire and water for you, and they’re not too keen on being hugged, but then nothing could be more stupid than that – and you should finally get that into your head! On the other hand, you can always be sure of getting advice, help and even money from them… Don’t you count them as friends? Eventually you will get married, and you’ll have a career and make a good living – it’s just a matter of applying yourself. Just do what everyone else does, and fate won’t pass you by – you’ll come into your own. It’s ridiculous to imagine yourself to be special and important, when that is not what you were meant to be. So what have you got to be so miserable about?”

  “I don’t blame you, Uncle, quite the contrary: I can appreciate your intentions, and I thank you for them from the bottom of my heart. But what can you do? They weren’t fulfilled. But don’t blame me either. We didn’t understand each other – and that was the tragedy. What can, and does appeal to you and one or
two others, does not happen to appeal to me…”

  “Me and one or two others! No, you’ve got it wrong, my dear fellow! You really think I’m the only one who thinks and acts the way I tried to teach you? Look around you, look at most people, the ‘common herd’, as you like to call them, and not those who live on their country estates – it will be a long time before this will apply to them. No, look at the educated, modern majority who think and act; what is it that they want, what are they striving for? How do they think? And you will see that it’s exactly what I tried to teach you – and what I asked of you. I didn’t just make all of this up.”

  “Then who did?” asked Lizaveta Alexandrovna.

  “The age we live in.”

  “So we’re all bound to follow the dictates of this modern age of yours,” she asked, “all of which are sacred and true?”

  “Yes, all sacred!” said Pyotr Ivanych.

  “Oh, really! So we must do more thinking than feeling? Not follow the promptings of our hearts? Stifle our impulses? Never give way to, or trust, our ‘heartfelt outpourings’?”

  “Yes,” said Pyotr Ivanych.

  “Everything we do should be strictly by the book, and we should place less trust in people, treat everything as unreliable and live just for ourselves?”

  “Yes.”

  “And isn’t this also sacred: that love is not the most important thing in life, and that we should love our work more than the person we love most – that we can’t count on anyone’s devotion – that we should believe that love will grow cold and end in betrayal or as a habit – and that friendship is nothing but habit. Isn’t this all true?”

  “It’s always been true,” replied Pyotr Ivanych. “Only, before, people didn’t want to believe it, but now it has become axiomatic.”

  “And is this sacred too: that everything must be examined, scrutinized and thought through – and that there’s no room for forgetting ourselves, dreaming a little, letting ourselves be carried away even by an illusion, just to make ourselves happy?…”

  “Yes, it’s sacred because it’s sensible,” said Pyotr Ivanych.

  “And is it also true that in dealing with those dearest to you, you should let your mind be your guide – your wife, for instance?…”

  “My back has never given me such trouble before – how it hurts!” said Pyotr Ivanych, writhing on his chair.

  “Ah! So when it comes to your back, ours is still the good age to be living in – unquestionably!”

  “It is indeed, my dear; caprice, impulse achieve nothing, but wherever there is good sense, a good reason, experience, gradual evolution, that’s what makes for success, and everything strives for perfection and the good.”

  “Maybe there is some truth in what you say, Uncle,” said Alexander, “but it does nothing to comfort me. According to your theory, I know everything, I see everything through your eyes; I’m a graduate of your school – but just the same, life is dreary, a burden, intolerable… Why is that?”

  “Because you’re not used to the way things are now; and you’re not the only one: there are still those who have been left behind; they are the ‘victims’, they are really pitiful. But what can you do? We can’t hold back the vast majority just for the sake of a handful of people. For everything you’ve just accused me of,” said Pyotr Ivanych after a moment’s thought, “I have just one major justification. Do you remember that, when you first arrived here, after a five-minute conversation with you, I advised you to go back home? You didn’t want to. So why should you attack me now? I predicted then that you would never adapt to the way things are now, but you chose to rely on my guidance and asked for my advice… and spoke loftily of the latest advances in human thought, of the aspirations of mankind… the practical spirit of the age – well, there you are! I couldn’t babysit you from morning to night – why should I have? I couldn’t cover your mouth at night with a cloth to protect you from the flies, or make the sign of the cross over you as you slept. I talked sense to you, because that’s what you asked me to do, and what was the result? Well, that’s certainly not my problem. You’re not a child, and not a fool, and are capable of thinking for yourself… Instead of getting on with your work, what did you do? You went around whining about some girl throwing you over, moaning and groaning about parting with a friend, suffering from spiritual emptiness, or being overwhelmed by your feelings; well, what kind of life is that? It’s sheer torture! Just take a look at the youth of today – fine young people! Hives of intellectual activity and energy – and how nimbly and easily they deal with all that tommyrot, known in your outdated language as ‘spiritual anguish’, ‘suffering’ and who the hell knows what else!”

  “You’re very glib when it comes to making your case!” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. “But aren’t you sorry for Alexander?”

  “No, I’m not. Now, if he were suffering from backache, I would be. That wouldn’t be pure fancy, a daydream or poetry, but something that really hurts.” He winced again.

  “Well, couldn’t you at least tell me what to do now, Uncle? How would you apply your intelligence to this problem?”

  “What to do? Why, yes, go back to your country estate!”

  “Go back home!” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. “Are you out of your mind, Pyotr Ivanych? What would there be for him to do?”

  “To the country!” said Alexander, and both of them looked at Pyotr Ivanych.

  “Yes, back to the country, and you can see your mother and console her. I mean, you’re looking for a quiet life, and here everything upsets you. And what could be less upsetting than what you have there? Your aunt, the lake. Yes, go! And who knows? Maybe… you know… Ouch!” He clutched his back.

  A couple of weeks later, Alexander handed in his resignation and came to say goodbye to his uncle and aunt. Alexander and his aunt were silent and sad. Her eyes glistened with tears. Pyotr Ivanych was the only one to speak.

  “No career, no fortune!” he said, shaking his head. “Was it really worth coming all this way, just to put the name of Aduyev to shame?”

  “That’s enough, Pyotr Ivanych!” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. “I’m fed up with hearing about your career.”

  “But, my dear, to have spent eight years doing nothing!”

  “Goodbye, Uncle; thank you for everything, everything…”

  “No need to thank me! Goodbye, Alexander. Don’t you need money for the journey?”

  “No thank you, I have enough to get by.”

  “What is this? He will never take money from me! This time, it really infuriates me. Well, take care, have a safe journey!”

  “Aren’t you sorry to see him go?” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna.

  Grudgingly, Pyotr Ivanych conceded, mumbling, “Well, I did… get used to him. Remember, Alexander, that you do have an uncle and friend – you hear? And if you ever need a favour, a job, or some of that ‘filthy lucre’, don’t hesitate to come to me: you can always count on all three.”

  “And if you should need sympathy,” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna, “comforting in distress, a warm friend who’s always there for you…”

  “And don’t forget the ‘heartfelt outpourings’,” added Pyotr Ivanych.

  “So remember,” Lizaveta Alexandrovna continued, “that you have an aunt and a friend.”

  “Well, my dear, he has all that in the country – everything he needs: flowers, love, outpourings and even an aunt.”

  Alexander was deeply moved, and unable to utter a word. As he said goodbye to his uncle, he reached out to hug him, although not so spontaneously as he had eight years before. Pyotr Ivanych, instead of giving him a hug, just took him by both hands and squeezed them harder than he had eight years before. Lizaveta Alexandrovna dissolved in tears.

  “Whew! That’s a weight off my shoulders, thank God!” said Pyotr Ivanych after Alexander had left. “Even my back seems to feel better!”
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  “What did he do to you?” his wife mumbled through her tears.

  “What did he do? Why, it was sheer torture – even worse than the trouble I have with my workers. If they give me trouble, they get a thrashing, but with him, with Alexander, what can you do?”

  Lizaveta Alexandrovna spent the whole day in tears, and when Pyotr Ivanych asked about dinner, he was told that the table hadn’t even been laid, and that the mistress had shut herself up in her study and had not summoned the cook.

  “It’s that Alexander again! Always Alexander!” said Pyotr Ivanych. “Nothing but trouble when he’s around!”

  He went on grumbling and growling until he finally left to dine at the English Club.

  The next morning the coach rumbled slowly out of the city, taking with it Alexander Fyodorych and Yevsei.

  Alexander poked his head out of one of the windows, doing everything he could to put himself in a mournful state of mind, and finally settled for a silent soliloquy. They passed by hairdressing salons, dental clinics, dress shops and the mansions of the wealthy. “Goodbye!” he said, shaking his head and clutching his own thinning hair. “Farewell, city of fake hairpieces, false teeth, cloth imitations of nature, round hats – city of polite disdain, affectations and futile busyness! Farewell, magnificent graveyard of deep, strong and warm emotions! I spent eight years looking modern life in the face but with my back turned to nature, so nature turned its back on me: I squandered my life force and grew old at the age of twenty-nine; but there was a time… Farewell, farewell, you city,

  “Where I suffered, where I loved,

  Where I buried my heart.”*

  “I reach out to embrace you, you broad fields, and you, you blessed villages and meadows of the land of my birth; take me to your bosom, that I may come to life and rise from the dead with my soul!”