‘‘I don’t know what beast you’re talking about,’’ said von Koren, ‘‘probably some insectivore. Well, so what? It caught a bird because the bird was careless; it destroyed the nest of eggs because the bird wasn’t skillful, it made the nest poorly and didn’t camouflage it. The frog probably had some flaw in its coloring, otherwise it wouldn’t have seen it, and so on. Your beast destroys only the weak, the unskilled, the careless—in short, those who have flaws that nature does not find it necessary to transmit to posterity. Only the more nimble, careful, strong, and developed remain alive. Thus your little beast, without suspecting it, serves the great purposes of perfection.’’
‘‘Yes, yes, yes... By the way, brother,’’ Samoilenko said casually, ‘‘how about lending me a hundred roubles?’’
‘‘Fine. Among the insectivores, very interesting species occur. For instance, the mole. They say it’s useful because it destroys harmful insects. The story goes that a German once sent the emperor Wilhelm I a coat made of moleskins, and that the emperor supposedly reprimanded him for destroying so many of the useful animals. And yet the mole yields nothing to your little beast in cruelty, and is very harmful besides, because it does awful damage to the fields.’’
Von Koren opened a box and took out a hundred-rouble bill.
‘‘The mole has a strong chest, like the bat,’’ he went on, locking the box, ‘‘its bones and muscles are awfully well developed, its jaw is extraordinarily well equipped. If it had the dimensions of an elephant, it would be an all-destructive, invincible animal. It’s interesting that when two moles meet underground, they both begin to prepare a flat space, as if by arrangement; they need this space in order to fight more conveniently. Once they’ve made it, they start a cruel battle and struggle until the weaker one falls. Here, take the hundred roubles,’’ said von Koren, lowering his voice, ‘‘but only on condition that you’re not taking it for Laevsky.’’
‘‘And what if it is for Laevsky!’’ Samoilenko flared up. ‘‘Is that any business of yours?’’
‘‘I can’t give money for Laevsky. I know you like lending. You’d lend to the robber Kerim if he asked you, but, excuse me, in that direction I can’t help you.’’
‘‘Yes, I’m asking for Laevsky!’’ said Samoilenko, getting up and waving his right arm. ‘‘Yes! For Laevsky! And no devil or demon has the right to teach me how I should dispose of my money. You don’t want to give it to me? Eh?’’
The deacon burst out laughing.
‘‘Don’t seethe, but reason,’’ said the zoologist. ‘‘To be Mr. Laevsky’s benefactor is, in my opinion, as unintelligent as watering weeds or feeding locusts.’’
‘‘And in my opinion, it’s our duty to help our neighbors!’’ cried Samoilenko.
‘‘In that case, help this hungry Turk who’s lying by the hedge! He’s a worker and more necessary, more useful than your Laevsky. Give him this hundred roubles! Or donate me a hundred roubles for the expedition!’’
‘‘Will you lend it to me or not, I ask you?’’
‘‘Tell me frankly: what does he need the money for?’’
‘‘It’s no secret. He has to go to Petersburg on Saturday.’’
‘‘So that’s it!’’ von Koren drew out. ‘Aha... We understand. And will she be going with him, or what?’’
‘‘She remains here for the time being. He’ll settle his affairs in Petersburg and send her money, and then she’ll go.’’
‘Clever! ...’ said the zoologist and laughed a brief tenor laugh. ‘‘Clever! Smart thinking!’’
He quickly went up to Samoilenko and, planting himself face-to-face with him, looking into his eyes, asked:
‘‘Speak frankly to me: he’s fallen out of love? Right? Speak: he’s fallen out of love? Right?’’
‘‘Right,’’ Samoilenko brought out and broke into a sweat.
‘‘How loathsome!’’ said von Koren, and one could see by his face that he felt loathing. ‘‘There are two possibilities, Alexander Davidych: either you’re in conspiracy with him or, forgive me, you’re a simpleton. Don’t you understand that he’s taking you in like a little boy, in the most shameful way? It’s clear as day that he wants to get rid of her and leave her here. She’ll be left on your neck, and it’s clear as day that you’ll have to send her to Petersburg at your own expense. Has your excellent friend so bedazzled you with his merits that you don’t see even the simplest things?’’
‘‘Those are nothing but conjectures,’’ said Samoilenko, sitting down.
‘‘Conjectures? And why is he going alone and not with her? And why, ask him, shouldn’t she go on ahead and he come later? A sly beast!’’
Oppressed by sudden doubts and suspicions concerning his friend, Samoilenko suddenly weakened and lowered his tone.
‘‘But this is impossible!’’ he said, remembering the night Laevsky had spent at his place. ‘‘He suffers so!’’
‘‘What of it? Thieves and incendiaries also suffer!’’
‘‘Even supposing you’re right...’ Samoilenko said, pondering. ‘‘Let’s assume... But he’s a young man, in foreign parts ... a student, but we’ve also been students, and except for us, there’s nobody to support him.’’
‘‘To help him in his abomination only because at different points you and he were at the university and both did nothing there! What nonsense!’’
‘‘Wait, let’s reason with equanimity. It’s possible, I suppose, to arrange it like this...’ Samoilenko reasoned, twisting his fingers. ‘‘You see, I’ll give him money, but I’ll take from him his gentleman’s word of honor that he will send Nadezhda Fyodorovna money for the trip in a week.’’
‘‘And he’ll give you his word of honor, and even shed a tear and believe himself, but what is his word worth? He won’t keep it, and when, in a year or two, you meet him on Nevsky Prospect arm in arm with a new love, he’ll justify himself by saying civilization has crippled him and he’s a chip off Rudin’s block.27 Drop him, for God’s sake! Walk away from this muck, and don’t rummage in it with both hands!’’
Samoilenko thought for a minute and said resolutely: ‘‘But even so, I’ll give him the money. As you like. I’m unable to refuse a man on the basis of conjectures alone.’’
‘‘Excellent. Go and kiss him.’’
‘‘So give me the hundred roubles,’’ Samoilenko asked timidly.
‘‘I won’t.’’
Silence ensued. Samoilenko went completely weak; his face acquired a guilty, ashamed, and fawning expression, and it was somehow strange to see this pitiful, childishly abashed face on a huge man wearing epaulettes and decorations.
‘‘The local bishop goes around his diocese not in a carriage but on horseback,’’ said the deacon, putting down his pen. ‘‘The sight of him riding a little horse is extremely touching. His simplicity and modesty are filled with biblical grandeur.’’
‘‘Is he a good man?’’ asked von Koren, who was glad to change the subject.
‘‘But of course. If he wasn’t good, how could he have been ordained a bishop?’’
‘‘There are some very good and gifted people among the bishops,’’ said von Koren. ‘‘Only it’s a pity that many of them have the weakness of imagining themselves statesmen. One occupies himself with Russification, another criticizes science. That’s not their business. They’d do better to stop by at the consistory more often.’’
‘‘A worldly man cannot judge a bishop.’’
‘‘Why not, Deacon? A bishop is the same sort of man as I am.’’
‘‘The same and not the same,’’ the deacon became offended and again took up his pen. ‘‘If you were the same, grace would have rested upon you, and you’d have been a bishop yourself, but since you’re not a bishop, it means you’re not the same.’’
‘‘Don’t drivel, Deacon!’’ Samoilenko said in anguish. ‘‘Listen, here’s what I’ve come up with,’’ he turned to von Koren. ‘‘Don’t give me that hundred roubles. You’re goi
ng to be my boarder for another three months before winter, so give me the money for those three months ahead of time.’’
‘‘I won’t.’’
Samoilenko blinked and turned purple, mechanically drew the book with the phalangid towards him and looked at it, then got up and took his hat. Von Koren felt sorry for him.
‘‘Just try living and having anything to do with such gentlemen!’’ said the zoologist, and he kicked some paper into the corner in indignation. ‘‘Understand that this is not kindness, not love, but pusillanimity, license, poison! What reason achieves, your flabby, worthless hearts destroy! When I was sick with typhoid as a schoolboy, my aunt, in her compassion, overfed me with pickled mushrooms, and I nearly died. Understand, you and my aunt both, that love for man should not be in your heart, not in the pit of your stomach, not in your lower back, but here!’’
Von Koren slapped himself on the forehead.
‘‘Take it!’’ he said and flung the hundred-rouble bill.
‘‘You needn’t be angry, Kolya,’’ Samoilenko said meekly, folding the bill. ‘‘I understand you very well, but ... put yourself in my position.’’
‘‘You’re an old woman, that’s what!’’
The deacon guffawed.
‘‘Listen, Alexander Davidych, one last request!’’ von Koren said hotly. ‘‘When you give that finagler the money, set him a condition: let him leave together with his lady or send her on ahead, otherwise don’t give it. There’s no point in being ceremonious with him. Just tell him that, and if you don’t, on my word of honor, I’ll go to his office and chuck him down the stairs, and you I’ll have nothing more to do with. Be it known to you!’’
‘‘So? If he goes with her or sends her ahead, it’s the more convenient for him,’’ said Samoilenko. ‘‘He’ll even be glad. Well, good-bye.’’
He affectionately took his leave and went out, but before closing the door behind him, he turned to look at von Koren, made an awful face, and said:
‘‘It’s the Germans that spoiled you, brother! Yes! The Germans!’’
XII
THE NEXT DAY, Thursday, Marya Konstantinovna celebrated her Kostya’s birthday. At noon everyone was invited for cake, and in the evening for hot chocolate. When Laevsky and Nadezhda Fyodorovna came in the evening, the zoologist, already sitting in the drawing room and drinking chocolate, asked Samoilenko:
‘‘Did you speak to him?’’
‘‘Not yet.’’
‘‘Watch out, don’t be ceremonious. I don’t understand the impudence of these people! They know very well this family’s view of their cohabitation, and yet they keep coming here.’’
‘‘If you pay attention to every prejudice,’’ said Samoilenko, ‘‘you won’t be able to go anywhere.’’
‘‘Is the loathing of the masses for licentiousness and love outside marriage a prejudice?’’
‘‘Of course. Prejudice and hatefulness. When soldiers see a girl of light behavior, they guffaw and whistle, but ask them what they are themselves.’’
‘‘It’s not for nothing that they whistle. That sluts strangle their illegitimate children and go to hard labor, and that Anna Karenina threw herself under a train, and that they tar people’s gates in the villages, and that you and I, for some unknown reason, like Katya’s purity, and that everyone vaguely feels the need for pure love, though he knows that such love doesn’t exist—is all that a prejudice? That, brother, is all that’s left of natural selection, and if it weren’t for this obscure force that regulates relations between the sexes, the Messers Laevsky would show us what o’clock it is, and mankind would turn degenerate in two years.’’
Laevsky came into the drawing room; he greeted everyone and, shaking von Koren’s hand, gave him an ingratiating smile. He waited for an opportune moment and said to Samoilenko:
‘‘Excuse me, Alexander Davidych, I must have a couple of words with you.’’
Samoilenko got up, put his arm around his waist, and the two went to Nikodim Alexandrych’s study.
‘‘Tomorrow is Friday ...’ said Laevsky, biting his nails. ‘‘Did you get what you promised?’’
‘‘I got only two hundred and ten. I’ll get the rest today or tomorrow. Don’t worry.’’
‘‘Thank God! ...’ sighed Laevsky, and his hands trembled with joy. ‘‘You are saving me, Alexander Davidych, and, I swear to you by God, by my happiness, and by whatever you like, I’ll send you this money as soon as I get there. And the old debt as well.’’
‘‘Look here, Vanya ...’ said Samoilenko, taking him by a button and blushing. ‘‘Excuse me for interfering in your family affairs, but ... why don’t you take Nadezhda Fyodorovna with you?’’
‘‘You odd fellow, how could I? One of us certainly has to stay, otherwise my creditors will start howling. I owe some seven hundred roubles in various shops, if not more. Wait, I’ll send them the money, stick it in their teeth, and then she can leave here.’’
‘Well... But why don’t you send her on ahead?’’
‘‘Ah, my God, how can I?’’ Laevsky was horrified. ‘‘She’s a woman, what will she do there alone? What does she understand? It would just be a loss of time and an unnecessary waste of money.’’
‘Reasonable ...’ thought Samoilenko, but he remembered his conversation with von Koren, looked down, and said sullenly:
‘‘I can’t agree with you. Either go with her or send her on ahead, otherwise ... otherwise I won’t give you the money. That is my final word...’
He backed up, collided with the door, and went out into the drawing room red-faced, in terrible embarrassment.
‘‘Friday . . . Friday,’’ thought Laevsky, returning to the drawing room. ‘‘Friday . . .’’
He was handed a cup of chocolate. He burned his lips and tongue with the hot chocolate and thought:
‘‘Friday . . . Friday . . .’’
For some reason, he could not get the word ‘‘Friday’’ out of his head; he thought of nothing but Friday, and the only thing clear to him, not in his head but somewhere under his heart, was that he was not to leave on Saturday. Before him stood Nikodim Alexandrych, neat, his hair brushed forward on his temples, and begging him:
‘‘Eat something, I humbly beg you, sir . . .’’
Marya Konstantinovna showed her guests Katya’s grades, saying in a drawn-out manner:
‘‘Nowadays it’s terribly, terribly difficult to study! So many requirements . . .’’
‘‘Mama!’’ moaned Katya, not knowing where to hide from embarrassment and praise.
Laevsky also looked at her grades and praised her. Bible studies, Russian, conduct, A’s and B’s began leaping in his eyes, and all of it, together with the importunate Friday, Nikodim Alexandrych’s brushed-up temples, and Katya’s red cheeks, stood before him as such boundless, invincible boredom that he almost cried out in despair and asked himself: ‘‘Can it be, can it be that I won’t leave?’’
They set two card tables next to each other and sat down to play postman’s knock. Laevsky also sat down.
‘‘Friday . . . Friday . . .’’ he thought, smiling and taking a pencil from his pocket. ‘‘Friday . . .’’
He wanted to think over his situation and was afraid to think. It frightened him to admit that the doctor had caught him in the deception he had so long and so thoroughly concealed from himself. Each time he thought of his future, he did not give free rein to his thoughts. He would get on the train and go—that solved the problem of his life, and he did not let his thoughts go any further. Like a faint, far-off light in a field, from time to time the thought glimmered in his head that somewhere, in one of Petersburg’s lanes, in the distant future, in order to break with Nadezhda Fyodorovna and pay his debts, he would have to resort to a small lie. He would lie only once, and then a complete renewal would come. And that was good: at the cost of a small lie, he would buy a big truth.
Now, though, when the doctor crudely hinted at the deceit by his refusal, it became
clear to him that he would need the lie not only in the distant future but today, and tomorrow, and in a month, and maybe even to the end of his life. Indeed, in order to leave, he would have to lie to Nadezhda Fyodorovna, his creditors, and his superiors; then, in order to get money in Petersburg, he would have to lie to his mother and tell her he had already broken with Nadezhda Fyodorovna; and his mother would not give him more than five hundred roubles—meaning that he had already deceived the doctor, because he would not be able to send him the money soon. Then, when Nadezhda Fyodorovna came to Petersburg, he would have to resort to a whole series of small and large deceptions in order to break with her; and again there would be tears, boredom, a hateful life, remorse, and thus no renewal at all. Deception and nothing more. A whole mountain of lies grew in Laevsky’s imagination. To leap over it at one jump, and not lie piecemeal, he would have to resolve upon a stiff measure—for instance, without saying a word, to get up from his place, put on his hat, and leave straightaway without money, without a word said, but Laevsky felt that this was impossible for him.
‘‘Friday, Friday . . .’’ he thought. ‘‘Friday . . .’’
They wrote notes, folded them in two, and put them in Nikodim Alexandrych’s old top hat, and when enough notes had accumulated, Kostya, acting as postman, went around the table handing them out. The deacon, Katya, and Kostya, who received funny notes and tried to write something funny, were delighted.
The Complete Short Novels Page 21