Pyotr Ivanych poured himself some wine and drank.
“That idiot!” he said, “served us chilled Lafitte.”
Alexander was silent, his head bowed.
“Now, tell me,” he said, warming the glass of wine in both hands, “why did you want to wipe the Count off the face of the earth?”
“I’ve already told you why! Isn’t he the one who destroyed my happiness? Like a wild beast he burst in…”
“Into the sheepfold!” interrupted his uncle.
“Carried off everything,” Alexander continued.
“He didn’t carry her off, but came and took her. Was he obliged to inquire whether your girl was taken by someone else? I don’t understand this stupidity, which, true, the majority of lovers have been committing since the creation of the world up to our time–getting angry at their rivals! Can there be anything more nonsensical– to wipe him off the face of the earth! What for? Because she liked him! As if he were to blame, and as if for this reason things would be better if we punish him! And your girl… what’s her name?–Katenka, isn’t it?–did she resist him perhaps? Make some effort to avoid the danger? She yielded on her own, she stopped loving you; there’s no use fighting–you won’t bring her back! To insist would be egoism! To require faithfulness of a wife makes sense. An obligation has been undertaken on which the material welfare of the family often depends. Of course, it’s impossible to demand that she not love anyone else, and you can only demand that she… the man… Yes, and you yourself, didn’t you hand her over to the Count with both hands? Did you contend for her?…”
“That’s what I want, indeed to contend,” said Alexander, jumping up from his place, “and you’re stopping my noble impulse…”
“Contend with an oak club in your hands!” interrupted his uncle. “We’re not in the Kirghizian steppes. In the educated world there’s another way of fighting. For that you would have had to go about it at the proper time and differently, fight a different kind of duel with the Count in the presence of your girl.”
Alexander looked at his uncle in amazement.
“What duel?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you now. What has been your course of action thus far?”
With numerous jibes, extenuations, dodges, and grimaces somehow Alexander recounted the whole course of events.
“You see? You’re guilty on all counts,” Pyotr Ivanych concluded, with a frown after hearing him out. “How many stupidities were committed! Oh, Alexander! Was it worth coming to St. Petersburg for this? You could have had this whole escapade at home on the lake with your aunt. Why, how could you be so childish, make scenes… lose your temper so? For shame! Who does that nowadays? What if your girl… what’s her name? Yuliya?… tells the Count everything? Not really, no fear of that, thank Heaven! Probably she’s clever enough to have answered his question about your relations by saying…”
“Saying what?” Alexander asked eagerly.
“That she fooled you, that you fell in love, you were obnoxious, you bored her… that’s what they always do…”
“You think she really said that?” asked Alexander, turning pale.
“Without any doubt. You don’t imagine she’d be likely to tell about gathering yellow flowers there in the garden with you? What naiveté!”
“What duel with the Count do you mean? ”asked Alexander impatiently.
“One like this. You shouldn’t have been rude, avoided him, made sour faces, but on the contrary, responded to his charm with two, three, ten times as much. And this–Nadenka? I’ve got it right it seems–you shouldn’t have irritated her with reproaches, but deferred to her caprices, pretended you noticed nothing, that you harbored no notion of betrayal, as if that were impossible. You shouldn’t have let them get close to the point of intimacy, but artfully broken it up as if unintentionally, prevented their meeting, just the two of them together, been everywhere with them, even ridden horseback with them and meanwhile quietly challenged your rival in her presence to competition, and then and there loaded and brought to bear all the forces of your mind, set up an artillery of wit, cunning and the like… discovered and struck down the weaknesses of your rival as if unintentionally, without forethought, good-naturedly, even unwillingly, with regret, and little by little stripped him of that finery in which a young man strikes a pose in front of a pretty girl. You should have noticed what impressed and dazzled her most in him and then artfully attacked those sides of him, simply exposed them, showed them up as ordinary, demonstrated that the new hero is second-rate… and has put on Sunday clothes only for her… But all must be done coolly, patiently and skillfully–that is what a real duel means in our time!”
Pyotr Ivanych had finished a glass the while and at once poured another.
“Contemptible trickery! Resorting to cunning to win a woman’s heart!…” indignantly remarked Alexander.
“Do you think it’s better to resort to a heavy club? It’s possible to keep someone’s affection by trickery, but by force–I don’t think so. I understand the wish to get rid of a rival. Taking steps to keep a beloved for oneself, preventing or averting danger–that’s very natural! But to club your rival because he has inspired love–that’s like bruising yourself and then banging the place where you did it, as children do. Have your way, but the Count is not to blame! As I see it, you don’t understand anything about the mysteries of the heart, and that’s the reason your love affairs and your stories are so bad.”
“My love concerns!” said Alexander shaking his head contemptuously. “Do you really think love inspired by trickery can be fulfilling or lasting?”
“I don’t know whether it’s fulfilling, that depends on how you look at it, it’s all the same to me. In general, I don’t think highly of love–you know that. To my mind, we don’t need it at all… but what’s more lasting is truth. To work on the heart directly is impossible. It’s a complex instrument; if you don’t know which spring to touch, it’ll start playing Heaven knows what. Awaken love by whatever means, but maintain it by intelligence; there’s nothing contemptible in that. No need to run your rival down and resort to character smears. That way you’ll only get your girl up in arms against you… You need only strip him of those blandishments with which he’s blinded your beloved, make him a simple, ordinary man in her eyes and not a hero… I think it’s pardonable to defend your own with noble trickery; that’s not disdained in military affairs. Look, you wanted to get married; it would be all right for a husband to make a scene over his wife, but threaten one’s rivals with a club–that would be…”
Pyotr Ivanych implied madness by pointing at his forehead.
“Your Varyenka was twenty percent more intelligent than you when she suggested waiting a year.”
“But could I have practiced cunning even if I’d known how? To do that you couldn’t love as I do! Some pretend to be cold at times, stay away for several days by cool calculation–and it works… But I can’t pretend or calculate! When I see her I stop breathing and my knees tremble and bend beneath me, I am ready for every torture if only to see her… No! say what you will, but for me the rapture is greater–to love with all the forces of my soul, even though I suffer, rather than be loved without loving, or love somehow half-heartedly for sport, or use some repulsive system and play with a woman as with a lap-dog, only to push her away…”
Pyotr Ivanych shrugged his shoulders.
“Well then, suffer if you enjoy it,” he said. “Oh, unspoiled country life! Oh, Asia! You should live in the Orient; there they still command women whom to love, and if they don’t obey, they drown them. No, here,” he continued, as if to himself, “to be happy with a woman, that is, not as you think, like a madman, but reasonably, requires a lot… You must know how to make a woman of a girl according to a well-thought-out plan, a method, if you will, so that she comes to know and fulfill her destiny. You draw a magic circle round her, not very narrow, so that she feels no limits and does not overstep them; you cunningly rule not only her hear
t–what’s that!–that’s a slippery and uncertain power–but her mind and will, subordinate her taste and habits to yours so that she sees things through you, is of the same mind as you…”
“That is, make her into a doll or a wordless slave of her husband,” Alexander interrupted.
“Why? Arrange things so that she does not play her feminine character and value false in any way. Give her freedom of action in her sphere, but let your penetrating intelligence watch over her every movement, sigh, act, so that each momentary excitement, flare-up, germ of feeling should always and everywhere meet the outwardly calm, but ever watchful eye of her husband. Organize constant checks without any tyranny, artfully even, imperceptibly to her, and lead her the way you want… Oh, a complex and difficult schooling is necessary, and that schooling is an intelligent and experienced man–that’s what’s needed.”
He cleared his throat significantly and tossed down a glass of wine in one gulp.
“Then,” he went on, “a husband can sleep peacefully even when his wife is not at his side, or sit without worry in his study when she sleeps…”
“Ah, so this is the famous secret of conjugal happiness!” remarked Alexander. “By deception you chain a woman’s mind, heart and will to yourself–and take comfort in this, act proud of it… this is happiness! And how will she perceive it?”
“Why act proud?” added his uncle. “That’s not necessary!”
“It follows, Uncle,” Alexander continued, “that since you sit without worry in your study while my aunt sleeps, this man, I would guess, is…”
“Sh! sh!.. Be quiet,” began his uncle, waving his hand, “it’s good my wife is asleep, for otherwise…”
At this moment the door to the study opened quietly, but no one was to be seen.
“And the wife,” began a woman’s voice from the corridor, “must not show that she understands the great schooling of her husband and must institute a little of her own, but not gossip about it over a bottle of wine…”
Both Aduyevs rushed to the door; rapid steps sounded in the corridor, the rustle of a dress–and all became quiet.
Uncle and nephew looked at each other.
“Well, Uncle?” asked the nephew after a moment’s silence.
“Well! Nothing!” said Pyotr Ivanych, frowning. “I boasted too soon. Learn from this, Alexander: Better not get married or else choose a fool. You won’t manage with an intelligent woman–that’s a difficult school!”
He thought it over, then struck himself on the forehead.
“How did I fail to consider that she knew of your late visit?” he said, annoyed, “and that a woman won’t go to sleep when there’s a secret between two men in the next room. Without fail she’ll either send her maid or come herself… and not to foresee it! How stupid! It’s all you and this cursed Lafitte here. I shot off my mouth! Such a lesson from a twenty-year-old woman…”
“You’re afraid, Uncle!”
“Why should I be afraid? Not at all! I made a mistake. I mustn’t lose my cool-headedness, I must get myself out of this.”
He thought it over again.
“She bragged,” he began. “What kind of schooling does she have! She can’t have any school; she’s young! She only talked that way… out of annoyance! But now she’s aware of the magic circle, she’ll become cunning herself… Oh, I know a woman’s nature! But we shall see…”
He smiled proudly and merrily; the wrinkles on his forehead smoothed out.
“Only things must be done differently,” he added. “The former method’s devilishly bad. Now we must…”
He suddenly caught himself and was silent, looking fearfully at the door.
“But that’s all in the future,” he continued. “Now let’s look at your business, Alexander. What were we talking about? Yes! It seems you wanted to kill, didn’t you, your… what’s her name?”
“I despise her too deeply,” said Alexander, sighing deeply.
“So, you see? You’re already half cured. Only, isn’t it true?–you’re apparently still angry. However, despise, despise; that’s best in your situation. I wanted to say something… better not…”
“Oh, speak, for Heaven’s sake, speak!” said Alexander. “Right now I haven’t a spark of reasonable judgment. I’m suffering, I shall perish… Give me some of your cold reasonableness. Say everything that can relieve and calm my sick heart…”
“Yes, I’ll tell you–but perhaps you’ll return there again…”
“What an idea! After what…”
“People return after even more! Your word of honor–you won’t go?”
‘I’ll swear it, if you insist.”
“No, give your word of honor; that’s better.”
“Word of honor.”
“Well, do you see? We’ve decided that the Count is not to blame…”
“Let’s suppose that’s so; then what?”
“Then, what’s your–whatever her name–guilty of…”
“What is Nadenka guilty of!” Alexander objected with amazement. “She’s not guilty!”
“No! So, not guilty of anything? Then there’s nothing to despise her for.”
“Nothing! No, Uncle, that’s going too far! Let’s suppose the Count… that he, too… didn’t know… and then, but no! And she? After that, who then is to blame? I?”
“Yes, almost that way, but in actual fact nobody. Tell me now, what do you despise her for?”
“For a dastardly deed.”
“Consisting of what?”
“She repaid a high-minded, unlimited passion with ingratitude…”
“What was there to be grateful for? Do you mean you loved for her sake, to be nice to her? Wanted to do her a favor perhaps? Then, in that case you’d have loved better than a mother.”
Alexander looked at him and didn’t know what to say.
“You shouldn’t have shown her the depth of your feelings; a woman cools when a man completely declares himself. You should have come to know her character and then acted accordingly and not lain like a pet dog at her feet. How can one not study a partner with whom there is business of any kind? Then you would have seen that you could expect nothing more of her. She had acted out her romance with you to the end; you’d have seen that she would play it to the end the same way with the Count and maybe with someone else as well… You can’t ask more of her. She can’t go higher and further! She isn’t that kind of person, but you imagined Heaven knows what…”
“But why did she fall in love with someone else?” interrupted Alexander bitterly.
“Still looking for causes; the reasonable question! Oh, you, barbarian! And why did you fall in love with her? Well, fall out of love right away!”
“You think that depends on me?”
“But you think her falling in love with the Count depended on her? You yourself affirmed that one mustn’t compel emotional impulses, but when it is your turn, you reason why she fell in love! Why did a certain man die, a certain woman go crazy? How should we answer such questions? Love must end some time; it can’t last a century.”
“Yes, it can. I feel in myself that strength of heart. I would have loved with an eternal love.”
“Yes! But if her love for you were really strong, you’d take off… go back on your word. Everyone’s like that, I know!”
“Granted her love was over,” said Alexander, “but why did it end like that?…”
“Does it matter? Look, you had love, enjoyed it and that’s enough!”
“She went to another!” said Alexander, going pale.
“And you’d have wished her to love another on the sly and go on assuring you of her love? Now, you yourself decide: what was she to do? Is she to blame?”
“Oh, I’ll avenge myself on her!” said Alexander.
“You’re ungrateful,” Pyotr Ivanych went on. “That’s not nice! Whatever a woman has done to you, betrayed you, grown cold, acted, as the poets say, in a wily manner–blame nature, devote yourself, please, to philosophical re
flection on the event, scold the world, life, what you will, but never impugn a woman’s character by word or deed. The weapon against a woman is condescension; in the end the most cruel tactic is to forget her. This is the only weapon permitted a decent man. Remember, for a year and a half you’ve hung on everyone’s neck out of joy, not known what to do with yourself for happiness! A year and a half of uninterrupted pleasure! Say what you will, you’re ungrateful!”
“Alas, Uncle, for me there was nothing on earth more sacred than love; without it life is not life…”
“Oh! it’s sickening to listen to such nonsense!” interrupted Pyotr Ivanych with irritation.
“I would have worshipped Nadenka,” continued Alexander, “and not been envious of any happiness in the world. I dreamed of spending my whole life with Nadenka. And what now? Where is that noble, gigantic passion of which I dreamed? It’s lost in some stupid, pigmy comedy of sighs, ugly scenes, jealousy, lying, hypocrisy–oh God! God!”
“Why did you imagine what doesn’t exist? Didn’t I keep telling you that till now you wanted to lead a kind of life not found on earth. You think a man is solely concerned with being a lover, husband, father… and you don’t even want to know about anything else. A man is also a citizen, has some kind of profession, occupation–a writer, perhaps, a landowner, soldier, civil servant, factory owner… But in your mind everything is subordinated to love and friendship–what a paradise! You’ve read too many novels, listened too much to your auntie there in the sticks, and brought these ideas here. In addition, you’ve dreamed up noble passion!”
“Noble, yes!”
“Enough, I beg you! You think there actually are noble passions!”
“There are!”
“Well, listen. Passion, after all, means the moment when feeling, attraction, devotion or things like that have reached a point where the mind ceases to function. So what’s noble about that? I don’t understand; it’s sheer madness–that’s not human. And why do you only see one side of the coin? I’m speaking of love-just look at the other side too, and you’ll see that love isn’t bad. Remember the happy moments. You buzzed my ears full of it…”
An Ordinary Story Page 18
