“Why, Uncle, this custom can’t possibly be condemned, I hope. Russian virtues…”
“Enough! What kind of virtue is that. Out of boredom they’re glad to see any scoundrel. ‘Welcome, eat as much as you want, just fill our emptiness somehow, help us kill time, and let us have a look at you. After all, you must know something new. And we don’t begrudge food; that costs us absolutely nothing here…’ Repulsive kindness!”
So Alexander went to bed and tried to guess what kind of man his uncle was. He called to mind their whole conversation. He didn’t understand a lot, the rest he didn’t wholly believe.
“Didn’t I speak well?” he thought. “Aren’t love and friendship eternal? Isn’t Uncle making fun of me? Can it be that’s the order of things here? What was it that Sofiya liked in me if not the gift of words? And is her love really not eternal? And do they really not eat supper here?”
He went on tossing in bed for a long time; his head was full of disturbing thoughts and his empty stomach kept him awake.
Two weeks passed.
Pyotr Ivanych grew ever more content with his nephew from day to day.
“He has tact,” he said to one of his factory partners, “which I wouldn’t have expected from a country boy. He doesn’t attach himself to you, doesn’t intrude without invitation, and when he notices his presence is superfluous, leaves at once; and he doesn’t ask for money. He’s a quiet fellow. There are strange things… he creeps up to embrace you, talks like a theology student… Oh well, he’ll get out of the habit of that. And it’s good he hasn’t hung himself round my neck.”
“Does he have a fortune?” the partner asked.
“No, around a hundred serfs.”
“So what! If he has ability, he’ll go far here… Look at you; starting from small beginnings, and now, thank Heaven…”
“No! Nonsense! He won’t get anywhere. This stupid exaltation is no good for anything; unfortunately he won’t get used to the order of things here. How can he have a successful career! He’s come here in vain… Oh well, that’s his affair.”
Alexander thought it his duty to love his uncle, but found no way to get used to his character and manner of thinking.
“My uncle is a good man, it seems,” he wrote one morning to Pospelov, “very intelligent, only altogether prosaic, always deep in business and calculation… His spirit seems to be fastened to the earth and unable ever to rise to the pure contemplation of man’s spiritual nature, isolated from earthly brawls. In his mind Heaven is inseparably connected to earth, and he and I shall never, it seems, shall never be wholly of one soul. Oh the way here I thought that, as my uncle, he would give me a place in his heart, would warm me in the cold crowd here by the affectionate embraces of his friendship. But friendship, you know, is a second Heaven! However, he too is nothing other than a product of this crowd. I thought he and I would share time together, be inseparable every minute, and what have I encountered?–cold bits of advice which he calls practical. I’d rather they were, instead, impractical, but full of warm sympathy from the heart. Not that he’s very proud, but he’s the enemy of every kind of sincere outpouring. We don’t dine, don’t sup together, don’t go anywhere. When he gets home, he never tells where he was, what he did, and likewise he never says where he’s going and why, who are his friends, whether he likes or not the way he spends his time. He’s never especially angry or affectionate or sad or merry. All impulses of love, friendship, all strivings toward the beautiful are strange to his heart. Often you speak and speak like an inspired prophet, almost like our great, unforgettable Ivan Semyonych when, you remember, he thundered from the lectern and we trembled with rapture at his fiery glance and speech. But Uncle?–he listens, raising his eyebrows, and gives me a strange look, or begins to laugh somehow in his unique way with a laugh that freezes my blood–and farewell inspiration! I often fancy I see Pushkin’s Demon in him… He doesn’t believe in love, and so on. He says there is no happiness and no one ever promised it; there’s simply life which is equally divided between good and evil, between pleasure, success, health, quiet, on the one hand, and discontent, failure, anxiety, illnesses and so on, on the other; that one must look at all this simply, not get useless questions into one’s head– useless, hear, hear!–questions about why we were created and to what end we strive–that this is not our worry, and that because of this we don’t see what is before our nose, and don’t do what is to be done–that’s all you hear about: doing! You can’t tell the difference with him whether he’s thinking of some pleasure or of a prosaic business deal. Whether he’s at his business accounts or at the theater, it makes no difference, he’s a stranger to strong impressions and, it seems, doesn’t love anything elegant. That’s alien to his soul; I think he hasn’t even read Pushkin…”
Pyotr Ivanych unexpectedly appeared in his nephew’s room and found him writing this letter.
“I came to see how you’ve settled in here,” the uncle said, “and to talk about business.”
Alexander jumped up and hastily covered something with his hand.
“Hide it, hide your secret,” said Pyotr Ivanych, “I’ll turn my back. So, have you hidden it? But what’s this that’s fallen out? What’s this thing?”
“This is nothing, Uncle…,” Alexander was about to begin, but became confused and fell silent.
“Hair, it seems! Truly nothing! Now that I’ve seen one thing, show me now that other you’re hiding in your hand.”
Like a schoolboy caught in the act, Alexander unwillingly opened up his hand and showed a ring.
“What’s this? Where did this come from?” asked Pyotr Ivanych.
“These are material tokens, Uncle, of spiritual relationships.”
“What? What? Give these tokens here.”
“These are pledges…”
“You no doubt brought them from the country?”
“From Sofiya, Uncle, to remember her by… when we said goodbye…”
“So that’s it. So you brought them nine hundred miles. ” The uncle shook his head. “You’d better have brought one more bag of dried raspberries. That we could at least have sold at the store, but these pledges…”
He inspected first the hair, then the ring, sniffed the hair and weighed the ring in his hand. Then he took a slip of paper from the table, wrapped both tokens in it, pressed the whole into a compact ball and–bang, out the window.
“Uncle!” cried Alexander, furious, seizing him by the hand, but too late. The paper ball flew over the corner of the neighboring roof, fell in the canal on to the edge of a barge full of bricks, rebounded and bounced into the water.
Alexander looked in silence with an expression of bitter reproach at his uncle.
“Uncle!” he repeated.
“What?”
“What’s a name for what you’ve done?”
“Ejection of non-material tokens out the window and into the canal–all kinds of junk and trifles which need not be kept in one’s room…”
“Trifles, you call those trifles!”
“And what did you think–half of your heart?… I come to see him on business, and this is what he’s doing–sitting thinking about junk!”
“Does that really hurt your business, Uncle?”
“Very much. Time is passing and till now you haven’t yet said a word about your intentions: whether you want to enter the civil service, or have chosen another occupation–not a word! And all this because you have Sofiya and her tokens on your mind. Here you are, it seems, writing a letter to her? Are you?”
“Yes… I was about to begin…”
“And have you written your mother?”
“Not yet, I wanted to tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow? To your mother tomorrow, but to Sofiya, whom you’ll inevitably forget in a month, you’re writing today.”
“Sofiya? Could I forget her?”
“Probably. If I hadn’t thrown away your pledges, then indeed you’d have remembered her a month longer. I did you a double favo
r. In a few years these tokens would have reminded you of a stupidity to make you blush.”
“Blush for such a pure, sacred recollection? That means not to believe in poetry…”
“What poetry is there in what’s stupid? The poetry in your aunt’s letter, for example! A yellow flower, the lake, some secret or other… When I began to read–I began to feel inexpressibly ill! I almost blushed when I thought I couldn’t blush any more.”
“That’s awful, awful, Uncle! Can it be you have never loved?”
“I can’t stand tokens.”
“What a wooden life that is!” said Alexander, strongly aroused. “That’s vegetating but not living! Vegetating without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love…” 2
“And without hair!” the uncle added.
“Uncle, how can you so coldly make fun of what is best on earth? Why, that’s a crime… Love… sacred emotions!”
“I know this sacred love. At your age you need only see a curl, a tiny shoe, a garter, or touch a hand–and sacred elevated love begins to run through your whole body, and if you give it reign, then it… Your love, unfortunately, lies in the future; you won’t escape it in any case, but doing–accomplishing–will escape you, if you don’t set to work at it.”
“But do you mean loving isn’t doing?”
“No, it’s a pleasant distraction. Only you mustn’t yield to it too much, or the result will be foolishness. That’s what I’m afraid of for you.” The uncle shook his head. “I’ve almost found you a job; you do want to be a civil servant, don’t you?” he said.
“Oh, Uncle, how glad I am!”
Alexander pounced upon his uncle and kissed him on the cheek.
“You managed it!” said his uncle, wiping his cheek, “however much I was on my guard! Well, then, listen. Tell me what you know, what you feel yourself capable of?”
“I know theology, civil, criminal, natural and common law, diplomacy, political economy, philosophy, aesthetics, archeology…”
“Stop, stop! But can you write decently in Russian? For now that’s the most needed of all.”
“What a question, Uncle: can I write Russian!” said Alexander and ran to the bureau, from which he began to take out various papers, and his uncle meanwhile took from the desk some letter or other and began to read.
Alexander came over to the desk with the papers and saw that his uncle was reading his letter. The papers fell from his hands.
“What’s this you’re reading, Uncle?” he said, alarmed.
“Why, a letter was lying here, to a friend, it must be. Pardon, I wanted to see how you write.”
“And you’ve read it all?”
“Yes, almost–look, only two lines are left–I’ll be finished right away. Why look, there are no secrets here; otherwise it wouldn’t have been lying around like this…”
“What do you think of me now?”
“I think you write decently, correctly, smoothly…”
“Therefore, you haven’t finished reading what I wrote?” asked Alexander eagerly.
“No, apparently that’s all,” said Pyotr Ivanych, looking at both pages. “First you describe Petersburg, your impressions, and then me.”
“Heavens!” exclaimed Alexander and covered his face with his hands.
“What is it? What is the matter with you?”
“And you say this calmly? You’re not angry, don’t hate me?”
“No! Why should I fly into a rage?”
“Tell me again, reassure me.”
“No, no, no.”
“I still can’t believe it; prove it, Uncle…”
“How do you want me to do that?”
“Embrace me.”
“Excuse me, I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because in that action there’s no reason, that is, mind, or speaking in the words of your professor, my consciousness does not impel me to do that. Now if you were a woman–that’s something else, then–it’s done mindlessly from a different impulse.”
“Feeling, Uncle, will out, demands expression, outpourings…”
“It doesn’t require anything of me, and if it did, I would restrain myself–and advise you to do the same.”
“What for?”
“Why, so that later, when you look more closely at the man you embraced, you don’t have to blush for your embraces.”
“Does it not happen then, Uncle, that you repulse a man and regret it later?”
“It happens; that’s why I also never repulse anyone.”
“You won’t repulse me either for what I’ve done, won’t call me a monster?”
“According to you, whoever writes nonsense is a monster. In that case the count would be incalculably many.”
“But to read such bitter truths about oneself–and from whom?–from one’s own nephew!”
“You imagine you wrote the truth?”
“Oh, Uncle!… of course, I was mistaken… I’ll correct it… forgive me…”
“If you want, I’ll dictate the truth to you.”
“Oh, please do.”
“Sit down and write.”
Alexander took out a sheet of paper and a pen, and Pyotr Ivanych, looking at the letter he’d just read, dictated: “‘Dear Friend.’ Do you have that?”
“I do.”
“‘I won’t describe Petersburg and my impressions to you.’”
“‘I won’t describe,’” said Alexander, writing.
“‘Petersburg has long since been described, and what hasn’t been, you must see for yourself; my impressions won’t be of any value to you. No need to waste time and paper for nothing. Better that I describe my uncle because that relates to me personally.’”
“‘… my uncle,’” said Alexander.
“Here you write that I’m very good and intelligent–maybe that’s true too, and maybe it isn’t. We’d better take the middle ground; write: ‘My uncle isn’t stupid and not mean, he wishes me well…’”
“Uncle! I can judge and feel…” said Alexander and reached out to kiss him.
“‘Though he doesn’t hang himself round my neck!’” Pyotr Ivanych continued dictating. Alexander, not having reached far enough, quickly sat down in his chair, “‘and he wishes me well because he has no reason or occasion to wish evil upon me and because my mother wrote in my favor; long ago she had been good to him. He says he doesn’t love me–and quite with good reason. It’s impossible in two weeks to love, and I don’t yet love him, though I assure him of the contrary.’”
“How can you say that?” said Alexander.
“Write, write: ‘But we’re beginning to get used to each other. He even says it’s possible to get along together without love. He doesn’t sit with me, embracing from morning to night because he says it’s not at all necessary, and besides he doesn’t have time.’”
“‘An enemy of sincere outpourings’–we can leave that; it’s good. Have you got it down?”
“I’ve got it.”
“So, what else is in your letter? ‘A prosaic spirit, a demon… ’ Write that.”
While Alexander was writing, Pyotr Ivanych took some other paper from the desk, rolled it, put fire to it and lit his cigar, then threw down the paper and stomped on it.
“‘My uncle is neither a demon nor an angel but the same kind of human being as everybody,’” he dictated, “‘only not quite like you and me. He thinks and feels in an earthly manner, assumes that if we live on earth, then it isn’t necessary to fly away to Heaven, where they don’t ask us to be now for the time being. Rather we should busy ourselves with the human affairs to which we are called. For this reason he enters into all earthly affairs, and by the way, into life as it is, and not as we would wish it to be. He believes in the good and in evil along with it, in the beautiful and the horrible. He believes in love and friendship too, only he doesn’t think that they’ve fallen from Heaven into the mud, but assumes that they were created along with people and for people, that we must understand
and in general, look at things steadily from their real side, and not be carried away, God knows where. Between honest people he admits the possibility of amicable relations, which, thanks to frequent encounters and habit, are transformed into friendship. But he also assumes that habit loses its force when people are separated, and that people forget one another and that this is by no means a crime. He therefore assures me that I will forget you and you me. To me and probably to you too, this seems absurd, but he advises me to think about it as little as possible, and I so advise you. This, he says, will come of itself– without effort. He says that life doesn’t consist only in this one thing, that there’s a right time for it as for everything else, and dreaming a whole lifetime about love alone is stupid.
Those who seek it and cannot manage even a minute without it–they live by the heart and still worse, at the expense of their heads. Uncle likes to be busy with an enterprise and advises me to do the same, and I pass on the advice to you. We belong to society, he says, which needs us. In being busy, he doesn’t forget himself either. An enterprise brings in money, and money, comfort, of which he’s very fond. Besides, perhaps he has intentions which will make it likely I won’t be his heir. Uncle is always thinking about his government job and his factory; he knows by heart not just Pushkin…’”
“You, Uncle?” said the astonished Alexander.
“Yes, sometime you’ll see. Write: ‘He reads in two languages everything excellent that is published in all branches of human knowledge, loves art, has a fine collection of pictures of the Flemish school–that’s his taste–goes to the theater often, but doesn’t make a fuss about it, throw his arms about, cry ah! and oh!, as he thinks that’s childish. He believes in restraining oneself, not foisting one’s impressions, which nobody needs, on others. He also doesn’t speak in a wild language, which he advises me not to do, and I you. Farewell, write me less often and don’t waste time in an empty way. Your friend So-and-so. And the month and day.’”
“How can I send a letter like that?” said Alexander. “‘Don’t write so often’–send that to a person who purposely drove eighty miles to say a last farewell! ‘I advise this, that and a third thing…’ He’s no stupider than I am. He graduated in second place.”
An Ordinary Story Page 7