“Yes, a lot of intelligence, and too much self-control,” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna despondently, “but…”
“And you, ma tante, will you lose respect for me? But believe me, it’s only the blows under which I’ve been reeling which could have distracted me… my God, my poor mother!”
Lizaveta Alexandrovna extended her hand to him.
“Alexander, I will never cease to respect the heart within you,” she said. “It’s your feelings which trap you into errors, and that’s why I will always pardon them.”
“Ah, ma tante, you are the ideal woman!”
“Just a woman.”
Alexander was profoundly affected by his uncle’s scolding and, sitting there with his aunt, he was assailed by tormenting thoughts. It seemed that the peace of mind which she had worked so hard and skilfully to restore in him had suddenly abandoned him.
She was worried – unnecessarily – that Alexander might respond by doing something damaging, and she was laying herself open to some barbed retort. She had also been doing her best to provoke a caustic quip at Pyotr Ivanych’s expense.
But Alexander was deaf and dumb; it was as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over him.
“What’s the matter with you? Why are you looking like that?” his aunt asked him.
“It’s nothing, just that I feel down-hearted for some reason. Uncle has made me understand myself; he’s a great explainer!”
“Don’t listen to him; he’s not always right.”
“Don’t try to make me feel better. At the moment I’m disgusted with myself. I despised and hated people, and now I despise and hate myself. You can hide from other people, but where can you hide from yourself? Everything has been reduced to dust and ashes – people, life itself, all futile, myself included…”
“Oh, that Pyotr Ivanych!” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna, sighing deeply. “He can make anyone feel wretched!”
“There’s only one consolation in all this: at least I haven’t deceived or betrayed anyone in love or friendship.”
“People didn’t appreciate you,” said his aunt, “but believe me, there will be a true heart to appreciate you, I can guarantee it. You’re still so young – just forget all this, and find some occupation. You have talent, so write… Are you working on anything at present?”
“No.”
“Write!”
“I’m afraid, ma tante…”
“Don’t listen to Pyotr Ivanych! Talk to him about anything you like: politics, agronomy, anything but poetry. He will never tell you the truth about that. Your readers will value you – you’ll see… So you will write?”
“Very well.”
“Will you start soon?”
“As soon as I can. Now that’s my only remaining hope…”
Pyotr Ivanych had awoken refreshed, and came into the room fully dressed and carrying his hat. He in turn advised Alexander to return to work at his office and in the agricultural department of the journal.
“I will try, Uncle,” replied Alexander, “but you see, I’ve just promised my aunt…”
Lizaveta Alexandrovna signalled to him not to say anything, but Pyotr Ivanych noticed.
“What did he promise?” he asked.
“To bring me some new music,” she replied.
“No, that’s not true. What was it, Alexander?”
“To write a novella or something…”
“So you still haven’t given up on your belles-lettres; and you, Liza, are leading him astray – you shouldn’t be!”
“I don’t have the right to give up on it,” Alexander responded.
“Who is stopping you?”
“Why should I voluntarily and ungratefully turn my back on an honourable vocation, my true calling? It’s the one bright hope left in my life, and you want me to destroy that too? This is something I’ve been called to by something outside myself – and if I kill it, I’ll be killing myself too…”
“So, please tell me, what exactly is it that has called you from the outside?”
“It’s something that I can’t explain to you, Uncle. It’s something you simply have to understand by yourself. Is there anything in your life that has made your hair stand on end – other than a comb?”
“No!” said Pyotr Ivanych.
“Well, let me ask you this: have passions ever surged in your breast, has your imagination ever caught fire and seethed with visions of beauty which have demanded to be embodied in some form? Has your heart ever beaten in some special way?”
“This is sheer craziness! And anyway, what about it?”
“To someone who has never experienced these things, how can one possibly explain the urge to write, when some restless spirit bids you night and day, in your dreams and in broad daylight, ‘Write, write!’?…”
“But you’re no good at it, are you?”
“Enough, Pyotr Ivanych! Just because you yourself are no good at something, why discourage others?” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna.
“Forgive me, Uncle, for saying that you are no judge in these matters.”
“Then who is? Her?”
Pyotr Ivanych pointed to his wife.
“She’s doing this purposely, and you believe her,” he added.
“Yes, and it was you yourself who, when I first arrived here, advised me to write, to try my hand…”
“Well, what of it? You tried, and nothing came of it – and you should have given up.”
“Do you really mean to tell me that you’ve never found a single idea, or a single line of mine at all worthwhile?”
“Of course I have! You’re not a fool; take any normal intelligent person who has written piles and piles of stuff: of course you would be sure to find a worthwhile idea or two. But that’s just a matter of intelligence, not talent.”
In her annoyance at this remark, Lizaveta swivelled in her seat.
“And all this beating of the heart, the fluttering, these ecstasies and so on and so forth – who doesn’t experience them?”
“Well, you in particular, less than anybody, it seems to me,” his wife remarked.
“What are you talking about? You must remember, there have been times when I have been delighted…”
“By what? I don’t remember.”
“Everyone experiences these things,” Pyotr Ivanych went on, turning to his nephew. “Who has never been moved by the silence and the darkness of night, or the sounds of the oak wood, by a garden, a pond or the sea? If it were only artists who experienced these things, there would be no one to appreciate their work. But expressing these feelings in their work is another matter: for this you need talent, and it doesn’t appear that you have any. It’s not something you can hide: it stands out in every line, in every brushstroke…”
“Pyotr Ivanych, it’s time for you to go,” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna.
“In a moment. You want to make your mark?” Pyotr Ivanych went on. “You have other ways of doing that. The editor is full of praise for you; he says that your articles on agriculture are excellent – and thoughtful – and that it all bears the mark of real erudition and is not the work of a mere journeyman. I was delighted. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘we Aduyevs really have heads on our shoulders.’ You see, I’m not without my pride! You can excel just as well in your work, and earn the prestige of a writer…”
“Some prestige! A writer – about fertilizer!”
“To each his own; one man’s fate is to soar in celestial heights, another’s fate is to burrow into fertilizer and find treasure. I don’t understand why one should look down on the humbler occupations – they all have their own poetry. Look, if you were to make a career and make money by your efforts, make a good marriage, like the majority… I don’t understand what else you could want. Your duty done, a life spent with honour and honest work – that’s where happiness lies, t
o my way of thinking. Look at me. I’ve risen to the rank of state councillor,* I’m an industrialist by profession, and if you were to offer me the title of Poet Laureate instead, I wouldn’t take it!”
“Listen, Pyotr Ivanych, you’re really late!” Lizaveta Alexandrovna broke in. “It’s almost ten o’clock.”
“Yes indeed, it’s time. Well, goodbye for now. And these people, God knows why, think they are superior beings,” he growled on the way out. “It’s, well…”
Chapter 2
Alexander returned home from his uncle’s, sat down in an armchair and started thinking. He remembered the whole conversation with his aunt and uncle, and took himself severely to task.
How, at his age, had he allowed himself to hate and despise people – to see and talk about their insignificance, pettiness and weaknesses, and to pick on each and every one of the people he knew – but forgotten to consider his own case? How could he be so blind? And his uncle had lectured him like a schoolboy, and had given him a thorough going-over – and moreover in the presence of a woman, all in order to get him to take a look at himself. What an impression his uncle must have made on his wife that evening! Nothing wrong with that, of course, it’s only normal; the trouble was that this impression was made at his expense. Now his uncle had achieved once and for all an indisputable supremacy over him.
So now what had become, after all this, he thought, of the advantages of youth, freshness, mental and emotional ardour, when someone armed only with the asset of experience, but with a dried-up heart and without energy, could destroy him so casually and nonchalantly at every step? When would this struggle finally become an even one, and when would the pendulum swing in his favour? His assets were both talent and an abundance of spiritual strength… but his uncle was a giant in comparison. How confidently he argued, how lightly he brushed aside any contradiction and achieved his goal with humour, with a yawn, ridiculing feeling and passionate outpourings of love and friendship – ridiculing, in a word, everything for which the older generation tends to envy the young! As he mulled all this over in his mind he flushed with shame. He swore that he would watch himself very carefully and take the first opportunity to crush his uncle, and to show him that no amount of experience could replace what it was that had “come to him from outside himself” – and that, for all his preaching, from this moment on, not a single one of his cold, methodical predictions would prove to be true. Alexander would find his own path by himself, and would tread it not tentatively, but with firm and even strides. He was now no longer the person he had been three years ago. He had peered into the recesses of his heart and had learnt its secrets; he had scrutinized the interplay of the passions and ferreted out the secret of life – not, of course, without suffering – but had armoured himself against it for ever. His future was clear: he had risen in revolt; he had grown wings – he was no longer a child, but a man, striking out boldly into the future! His uncle would see how henceforth it would be his turn to play the role of the pathetic apprentice to his nephew, the master craftsman; he would discover, to his surprise, that there was another life, other attainments, other kinds of happiness than those offered by a banal career which he, his uncle, had chosen for himself and which he had attempted to foist on him, maybe out of envy. Just one more honourable effort and the battle was won!
Alexander had come back to life. He once again began to create a special world of his own, but one a little wiser than the first. His aunt supported him in this resolve, but discreetly, while Pyotr Ivanych was sleeping, at the factory or the English Club.
She would ask him about his work, and whether he was enjoying it. He would describe the work he was planning and seek her approval in the guise of her advice. She sometimes disagreed with him, but more often they agreed.
Alexander committed himself to his work as tenaciously as if it were his last hope. Beyond it, he assured his aunt, lay nothing but an arid steppe, without water, without vegetation, bleak and deserted. What kind of life awaited him there? It would be like interring himself in his own tomb!
From time to time the memory of his extinct love would come back to him and trouble him, but he would dismiss it and take up his pen and write a moving elegy. At other times, bitter resentment would well up in him and would stir up from the depths the hatred and contempt he had felt for people only a short time before – and before you knew it, some vigorous lines of verse had been generated by it. At the same time, he had been pondering and beginning to write a novella. It took a great deal of thought, feeling and sheer hard work, and about six months of his time. Finally it was finished, revised, and a fair copy had been made. His aunt was thrilled. This time the story was set not in America, but in some village in the Tambov province. Its characters were ordinary people: malicious gossips, liars and other kinds of scum in tailcoats, adulterous women in corsets and hats. It was standard fare, and everything was where it was expected to be – appropriate – and in its proper place.
“Now, ma tante, I can show this to my uncle?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied. “On the other hand, maybe it would be better to get it published as it is, without showing it to him. He is bound to say something negative about it. You know he always treats it as childish nonsense.”
“No, I’d better show it to him!” said Alexander. “After it has passed muster with you and has satisfied me, I fear no one’s judgement, so why not let him see it?…”
So it was shown to his uncle. When he saw the manuscript, he frowned slightly and shook his head.
“What is this? Something the two of you have written together?” he asked. “What a lot you seem to have written, and in such tiny writing – what made you take all that trouble?”
“Wait before you start shaking your head,” his wife replied. “First listen! Read it to us, Alexander. And you, pay attention: don’t nod off and then pronounce sentence. You can find fault anywhere, if you’re looking for it; try to be tolerant.”
“No, why? Just be fair, that’s all,” Alexander interjected.
“Well, if I must, I’ll listen,” said Pyotr Ivanych, “but on one condition: don’t read it soon after dinner, otherwise I can’t guarantee that I won’t doze off. Don’t take it personally, Alexander, but any time someone reads something after dinner, it always makes me sleepy – oh, and another thing: if it’s something worthwhile, then I’ll tell you what I think; if not, I won’t say anything, and you can take it however you like.”
The reading began. Pyotr Ivanych didn’t nod off once: he listened without once taking his eyes off Alexander, hardly even blinking, and twice even nodded approvingly.
“You see!” said his wife in a half-whisper. “What did I tell you?”
He gave her a nod too.
The reading continued for two consecutive evenings. On the first evening after the reading, Pyotr Ivanych, to his wife’s surprise, told them the rest of the story.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Not that hard to guess! The idea is not a new one – it’s been used thousands of times. No real need to continue the reading, but let’s see how he handles the rest.”
The next evening, when Alexander was reading the last page, Pyotr Ivanych rang, and his servant entered.
“I need to get dressed,” he told him. “Get my things ready! I’m sorry, Alexander, for interrupting you, but I’m in a hurry, I’m late for my whist at the club.”
Alexander finished reading, and Pyotr Ivanych was out like a shot.
“Goodbye for now!” he said to his wife and Alexander. “I won’t be looking in again here!”
“Stop, stop!” his wife cried out. “Aren’t you going to say anything about the story?”
“Didn’t we have an understanding?” he replied, and made as if to leave.
“Sheer obstinacy!” she said. “He’s just being obstinate – I know him. Don’t pay him any attention, Alexander!”
> “It’s ill will!” thought Alexander. “He wants to drag me down into the mud and force me into his world. Of course, he’s an intelligent man and owns a factory – and that’s all, but I am a poet…”
“That’s the absolute limit, Pyotr Ivanych!” his wife began, almost in tears. “Say something at least. I saw you nodding your approval, so you must have liked it. It’s just that you don’t want to admit it out of stubborn pride. How could I admit that I liked a mere story? Oh no, I’m too clever for that. Admit that it was good!”
“I nodded my head because it’s clear from the story that Alexander is intelligent, but what was not intelligent was to have written that story.”
“But really, Uncle, a judgement like that…”
“Listen, you’re never going to believe me, so there’s nothing more to be said; so why don’t we nominate a mediator? I’ll tell you what I’ll do to settle it between us once and for all. I’ll pretend I’m the author of the story and send it to a friend of mine who works at the journal, and let’s see what he says. You know him, so you probably trust his judgement. He’s a man of experience.”
“Very well, let’s see.”
Pyotr Ivanych sat down at the desk and quickly wrote a few lines, and handed the letter to Alexander.
Late in life, I have decided to take up writing. No help for it: if you want to make a name for yourself, you turn to anything – even this – I must be crazy! So I’ve produced the story I’ve enclosed. Take a look at it, and if it’s any good, publish it in your journal – for a fee of course, you know I don’t like to work without pay. You may be surprised, and you won’t believe it, but I’m even letting you sign my name, so you know I must be telling the truth.
Confident of a favourable response to the story, Alexander patiently awaited the reply. He was even pleased that his uncle had mentioned money in the note.
“Very clever indeed,” he thought. “Mummy complains that the price of grain is down, and she’s not likely to be sending any money soon, so this 1,500 would come in handy.”
The Same Old Story Page 23