“There, that’s better,” said Pyotr Ivanych. “What’s your opinion now of that… what’s her name? Pashenka, the one with the wart?”
“Uncle, that’s not generous!”
“No. I’m only talking so as to find out whether you still look down on her?”
“Let all that be for Heaven’s sake, and instead, help me now to get out of this terrible plight. You’re so wise, so reasonable…”
“So! Now you’re giving me compliments, flattery! No, get married, go ahead.”
“Not for anything, Uncle! I implore you, help!”
“I’ve made a start, Alexander. Good that I guessed about your pranks long ago.”
“What do you mean, long ago!”
“Why this: I’ve known about your affair from the very beginning.”
“No doubt Aunt told you.”
“Not at all! I told her. What’s complicated about that? Everything was written on your face. Come don’t be distressed; I’ve already helped you.”
“How? When?”
“This morning. Don’t get excited: Tafayeva won’t bother you any more…”
“How did you manage? What did you tell her?”
“It’d take a long time to repeat, Alexander–it’s boring.”
“But you might have told her God knows what. She hates me, scorns me…”
“Isn’t all that unimportant? I calmed her down–and that’s enough. I said you couldn’t love, that bothering about you wasn’t worth it…”
“What did she answer?”
“She’s even glad that you left her!”
“You say glad!” said Alexander thoughtfully.
“Yes, glad!”
“You didn’t notice either regret or sadness in her? She doesn’t care at all? Why, that’s awful!”
He began to pace round the room excitedly.
“Glad, quite calm!” he insisted, “now I ask you! I’m going to see her at once.”
“People are crazy!” remarked Pyotr Ivanych. “That’s the heart for you: live by it–and everything will be in a fine fix. Wasn’t it you who feared she’d send for you? Weren’t you the one who asked for help? And now you’ve gotten excited because after separating from you she’s not dying of grief.”
“She’s glad, content!” said Alexander, pacing back and forth, and not listening to his uncle. “Aha! so she didn’t love me! Neither grief nor tears. No, I’ll go see her.”
Pyotr Ivanych shrugged his shoulders.
“Have it your way; I can’t leave it like this, Uncle!” Alexander added, reaching for his hat.
“Well, go to her, then. But you won’t pull free, and don’t you come bothering me afterwards. I’m not going to intervene. I did it now only because I myself had gotten you into this. But enough, why are you still depressed?”
“It’s shameful to live in this world!” said Alexander with a sigh.
“And shameful not to be working at anything,” his uncle added. “Enough! Come see us today. After dinner we’ll have a good laugh at your adventure, and then we’ll go for a drive to the factory.”
“How small I am, a nothing!” said Alexander pensively. “I have no heart! I’m pitiful, a beggar in spirit!”
“And all because of love!” Pyotr Ivanych interrupted. “What a stupid preoccupation–leave it to some Surkov or other. You’re a capable fellow, you can busy yourself with something more important. You’ve done enough chasing after women.”
“But look, you love your wife, don’t you?…”
“Yes, of course. I’ve grown very accustomed to her, but that doesn’t prevent me from doing my work. Well, goodbye, come to dinner.”
Alexander sat, confused and morose. Evsei came stealing up to him with a boot, into which he had plunged his hand.
“Please, take a look, Sir,” he said, imploring, “what a shoe polish! You polish and it comes out just like a mirror, and it costs only a quarter ruble.”
Alexander came to, mechanically took a look at the boot, then at Evsei.
“Go away!” he said. “You’re a fool!”
“You should send me back to the country…” Evsei said again.
“Go away, I tell you, go away!” shouted Alexander, almost weeping. “You’ve tormented me, you and your boots will drive me to the grave… you… barbarian!”
Evsei made a fast exit to the front hall.
IV
“Why doesn’t Alexander come to our house? I haven’t seen him for some three months,” Pyotr Ivanych asked his wife one day as he returned home from somewhere or other.
“I’ve really lost hope of seeing him ever again,” she answered.
“Why, what’s the matter with him? In love again maybe?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he well?”
“He is.”
“Write to him, please; I must have a talk with him. At the office there are job changes again, but I don’t think he knows. I don’t understand his lack of interest.”
“I’ve already written and invited him ten times. He says he’s too busy, but actually he plays checkers with some peculiar people or goes fishing. It would be better to go there yourself, you could find out what’s happened to him.”
“No, I don’t want to. Send a servant.”
“Alexander won’t come.”
“Let’s try.”
They sent a servant, who quickly returned.
“So, what news; is he at home?” asked Pyotr Ivanych.
“He’s at home, he sends you greetings.”
“What’s he doing?”
“He’s lying on the sofa.”
“What, at this hour?”
“The gentleman, you know, lies there all the time.”
“Why, what do you mean, sleeping?”
“No, not at all, Sir. I thought so too at first, the master’s napping, but no, his eyes are open, he’s happy to stare at the ceiling.”
Pyotr Ivanych shrugged his shoulders.
“Will he come here?” he asked.
“By no means, Sir. ‘Give him my greetings,’ he says. ‘Tell Uncle to pardon me. I’m not well,’ he says; and to you too, Ma’am, he sends greetings.”
“What’s the matter with him then? This is astonishing, really! Just going to pieces like this! Tell them not to unharness the carriage. There’s no escape, I’ve got to go myself. But, really, this is the last time.”
Pyotr Ivanych found Alexander on the sofa. When his uncle came in, he raised his head and sat up.
“You’re not well?” asked Pyotr Ivanych.
“That’s right…,” answered Alexander, yawning.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“You can spend your time without doing anything?”
“I can.”
“I heard today, Alexander, something about Ivanov’s being promoted at the office.”
“Yes, he’s being promoted.”
“Who gets his job?”
“Ichenko, they say.”
“And you?”
“Me? Nothing.”
“Why nothing? Why isn’t it you?”
“They’re not giving it to me. What’s the use; true, I don’t deserve it.”
“I ask you, Alexander, you have to do something. If you went to see the director.”
“No,” said Alexander, shaking his head.
“Apparently you don’t care?”
“I don’t care.”
“Look, this is the third time they’ve passed you by.”
“I don’t care. Let them.”
“Look here, you’ll have something to say when your former subordinate starts telling you what to do, or when you have to get up and bow when he comes in.”
“All right, I’ll get up and bow.”
“And your self-esteem?”
“I haven’t got any.”
“Surely you have some interests in life?”
“None. I had some, but they disappeared.”
“That’s impos
sible. Some interests are replaced by others. But why have yours disappeared, when other people’s haven’t? It’s too soon for that, it seems to me. You’re not thirty yet…”
Alexander shrugged his shoulders.
Pyotr Ivanych by now no longer wanted to continue this conversation. He called all this caprice, but he knew that upon returning home there would be no avoiding his wife’s questions, and therefore, unwillingly, he went on: “You might find some distraction, might go to social events,” he said. “You could read.”
“I don’t want to, Uncle.”
“People are beginning to talk about you, that you… that is… have had a breakdown because of love, are doing Heaven knows what, going around with peculiar people… For me that alone would be reason enough to go out.”
“Let them say what they want!”
“Listen, Alexander, joking aside. That’s all unimportant. You can bow or not bow, go to social events or not. But remember, like everyone, you have to have a career of some kind. Do you ever think of that?”
“Of course, I’ve already thought about it.”
“What then?”
“I’ve drawn up a circle of activity for myself and I don’t wish to step outside the circle. Within it I am master, that’s my career.”
“That’s laziness.”
“Perhaps.”
“You don’t have the right to lie on your side when as long as you have the strength for it you can do something. Is your work finished?”
“I’m doing something. No one will accuse me of idleness. In the morning I work at the office, but to labor beyond that–that’s simply a luxury, an arbitrary obligation. Why should I bother?”
“Everybody bothers for some reason–one because he thinks it’s his duty as long as his strength lasts, another for money, a third for honor… Why are you an exception?”
“Honor, money! Especially money! Why that? Look, I have enough to eat, something to wear, that’s enough.”
“And you’re badly dressed now,” remarked his uncle. “You’re saying you need only that?”
“Only that.”
“And the luxury of intellectual and spiritual pleasures, and art…” Pyotr Ivanych was about to begin imitating Alexander’s tone: “You can move forward, you have a higher destiny, your duty calls you to noble labor… And your striving toward higher things–have you forgotten?”
“God be with them! God be with them!” said Alexander, disturbed. “And you, Uncle, have begun to talk wildly! That didn’t use to be your custom. You aren’t doing it for me, are you? You’re wasting your breath! I did strive for higher things–remember? What was the result?”
“I remember how suddenly you wanted to be a minister of state right away, and then a writer. But when you saw that the way to a high calling is a long and difficult road, that talent is required of a writer, then you drew back. Many, like you, come here with higher views and don’t see their chance when it’s under their very nose. Just as you need paper to write–they take one look, and they’ve had it… I’m not talking about you; you’ve proved you can work and be something in time. Indeed it is boring to wait a long time. We want it all at once; if that doesn’t happen, we feel depressed.”
“But I don’t want to strive higher. I want to stay as I am. Don’t I have the right to choose my occupation for myself, whether or not it’s beneath my abilities–what’s the difference? If I do my work conscientiously–I do my duty. Let them reproach me with an incapacity for higher things: that wouldn’t hurt me at all, even if it were true. You yourself said there’s poetry in a modest corner, but now you’re reproaching me for choosing the most modest one. Who’ll forbid me to go down several steps and stand on the one I like? I don’t want a higher destiny–do you hear, I don’t want it!”
“I hear you! I’m not deaf yet, only this is all pitiful sophistry.”
“It doesn’t matter. So I’ve found my place and shall stay in it all my life. I’ve found simple, plain people; it doesn’t matter that they’re limited in intelligence. I play checkers with them and go fishing–and that’s fine! Let me be punished for it, as you think; let me do without awards, money, honors, significance–everything that so flatters you. I renounce it forever…”
“You want to pretend calm and indifference to everything, but in your words resentment boils up. You’re talking as if in tears, not words. There’s a lot of rage in you; you don’t know on whom to pour it out because only you yourself are to blame.”
“So be it!” said Alexander.
“What do you want then? Shouldn’t a person want something?”
“I want to be left alone to be in my dark corner, to be allowed not to bother about anything and stay quiet!”
“And is that really life?”
“Rather to my mind the life you lead isn’t life, therefore I’m right.”
“You want to remake life in your way; I imagine it would be a good one. According to you, I imagine, everybody would be walking in pairs of lovers and friends amid rose bushes…”
Alexander said nothing.
Pyotr Ivanych looked at him in silence. Alexander had again grown thin. His eyes were sunken. Premature wrinkles had appeared on his cheeks and forehead.
His uncle became alarmed. He did not much believe in spiritual sufferings, he feared the beginning of some physical ill was hidden beneath this apathy. “Suppose,” he thought, “the fellow goes crazy, and you inform his mother; that will lead to a correspondence! If you don’t watch out, she’ll turn up here.”
“Well, Alexander, I see you’re disillusioned,” he said. “What if I turn him back,” he thought, “to his favorite ideas. Wait, I’ll pretend…”
“Listen, Alexander,” he said. “You’ve let yourself go terribly. Throw off this apathy. It’s not good! And why? Perhaps you took too much to heart my sometimes careless criticism of love and friendship. Look, I said it in jest, in order to moderate the exaltation in you, which is somehow out of place in our positive century, especially here in St. Petersburg where everything is regulated, not only fashions, but also passions, business affairs and pleasures, everything is weighed out, checked out, evaluated… a limit set for everything. Why should one person openly depart from this general order? Do you really think I’m without feeling, that I don’t recognize love? Love is a beautiful feeling; there’s nothing more sacred than the union of two hearts, that friendship, for example… I’m inwardly convinced that feeling must be constant, eternal…”
Alexander burst out laughing.
“What’s the matter?” asked Pyotr Ivanych.
“You’re talking wildly, Uncle. Shall I get you a cigar; we’ll light up, you’ll go on talking and I’ll listen.”
“Why, what’s the matter with you?”
“Why, nothing. You’ve decided to ensnare me! But at one time you called me a person of some intelligence! Do you want to toy with me like a little ball–that’s insulting! One isn’t a boy forever. The school I’ve been through has been good for something. How you’ve launched into oratory! As if I have no eyes? You’re just trying to trick me, but I’ve seen through it.”
“I’ve attempted what’s beyond me,” thought Pyotr Ivanych. “I’d better send him to my wife.”
“Come to see us,” he said, “my wife very much wants to see you.”
“I can’t, Uncle.”
“Is that nice of you to forget her?”
“Maybe it’s very bad, but pardon me for Heaven’s sake and don’t expect me now. Wait a little while longer; I’ll come.”
“Well, as you wish,” said Pyotr Ivanych. He waved his hand and went home.
He told his wife that he was washing his hands of Alexander; let him do as he wanted, but he, Pyotr Ivanych, had tried all he could and was through with him now.
After escaping Yuliya, Alexander threw himself into a whirlpool of noisy merrymaking. He recited lines by a famous poet of ours:
Let’s go where joy draws breath,
Where the noisy w
hirl of amusements roars,
Where men don’t live but throw life and youth away!
In merry games at a joyful table,
Drunk with the moment’s false happiness,
I inure myself to worthless dreams,
Accept my fate with the help of wine,
And calm the heart’s cares,
Make thoughts stop flying,
Command my eyes ne’er to see
The silent splendor of the skies, etc.
A circle of friends turned up and with them the unavoidable goblet. The friends contemplated their faces which were reflected in the foaming moisture and in their lacquered boots. “Away with grief,” they exclaimed, exulting, “away with cares! Throw away, destroy, burn to ashes, drink up life and youth! Hurrah!” Glasses and bottles flew to the floor with a crash.
For a while the freedom, noisy gatherings, and his carefree life compelled Alexander to forget Yuliya and his sadness. But it was always one and the same thing–dinners in restaurants, the same faces with blurry eyes, every day the same stupid and drunken ravings of his companions, and besides, a constantly sick stomach; no, this wasn’t for him. The delicate organism of Alexander’s body and his soul, which was inclined to a sad, elegiac note, did not withstand these amusements.
He fled from merry games at the joyous table and found himself alone in his room in solitude with himself and his forgotten books. But a book would slide out of his hands, the pen did not obey his inspiration. Schiller, Goethe, Byron revealed the dark side of humanity to him–he didn’t notice the bright side; he wasn’t in the mood for it.
But how happy he had once been in that room! He hadn’t been lonely; a lovely ghost had been nearby then to shelter him in the day at his absorbing work and keep watch at night at his bedside. Dreams had lived with him there, the future was clothed in a cloud, though not a heavy one portending foul weather, but rather a morning cloud hiding a bright dawn. Something was concealed behind the cloud, probably happiness… But now? Not only his room but the whole world had become empty for him, and within him dwelt cold and sadness…
Looking into life, and questioning his heart and his head, he saw with horror that neither here nor there had he a single dream left, not a single rosy hope: they were all behind him. The cloud had parted; naked reality spread out before him like the steppe. Heavens! What a boundless expanse! What a boring, cheerless view! The past had perished, the future is destroyed, there is no happiness. Everything is an illusion–but life goes on!
An Ordinary Story Page 28
