" No, it's your words that are so incomprehensible!" thought Piotr Tvanitch.
"I did not know [he read] that our dear Sashenka had suddenly decided to visit the splendid metropolis— happy boy! he will see the magnificent houses and shops, will enjoy the luxuries of town, and will press his adored uncle to his bosom; but I—I—meanwhile shall be shedding tears over the memory of my own happy days. If I had known of his departure, I should have worked day and night and have embroidered a cushion for you: a negress with two dogs. You would not believe how often I have wept looking at that pattern; what is more sacred than friendship and fidelity ? Now I am possessed by one only thought; I shall devote my days to it; but I have no wool here good enough, and so I am venturing to beg you, dearest brother, to send me some like this pattern which I have enclosed, of the very best English wool as soon as possible from the first shop. But what am I saying ? what an awful thought arrests my pen! perhaps you have already forgotten me, and how should you remember the poor sufferer, who can but weep secluded from the world ? But no! I cannot think that you are a monster, like all men; no! my heart speaks and tells me that you have kept your old sentiment towards me—towards all—in the midst of all the pomps and pleasures of the great metropolis. This thought is a balm for my suffering heart. Forgive me, I cannot write more, my hand trembles.
" I remain till death yours,
"Maria Gorbatov."
"P.S.—Have you, brother, any good books by you? Send me some if you have any to spare; on every page I should remember you and weep, or get me some new from a shop, if they are not dear. They say the works of Mr. Zagoskin and of Mr. Marlinsky are very good—let it be those; and I have seen in the papers the title— 4 Of Prejudices' by Poozin—send me that—I can't endure prejudices."
Having read it through, Adouev was just going to get rid of the letter, but he stopped short.
a No," he thought, " I will keep it; there are people who make a speciality of such letters; some of them have whole collections—perhaps some one would be glad to have it.
He threw the letter into the beaded basket, which hung on the wall, then took up the third letter and began to read it:
"D ear B rother-in-law, Piotr Ivanitch^—Do you remeriflSerhow seventeen years ago we were preparing for your departure from us ? Now it has pleased God to send my own son on the same long journey. You will be delighted with him; he will remind you of our dear lamented Fedor Ivanitch. Sashenka is his father over again. God alone knows what my mother's heart has suffered in letting him go away to strange parts. I send him, my dear brother-in-law, straight to you; I was not willing he should lodge anywhere except with you "
Adouev again shook his head.
" Silly old woman !" he muttered and read on : " He might, in his inexperience, I daresay, have put up at the inn, but I knew that his uncle might feel hurt by that, and I bade him go straight to you. How delighted you will be when you see him! Don't let him want for advice, brother-in-law, and take him under your wing; I give him into your hands."
Piotr Ivanitch paused again.
u Of course you are all he has [he went on reading]. Look after him, don't spoil him too much, and don't be too severe with him; he is sure to get severity from some one, and strangers will be hard upon him, but he has no one to pet him, except his kinsman; and he is such an affectionate boy: you have only to see him and then you will not part with him. And tell the chief, in whose office he will be, to take care of my Sashenka and to treat him tenderly before all things; he has been tenderly cared for with me. Keep him from wine and cards. At night— you will no doubt sleep in the same room—Sashenka has a way of lying on his back; from this he is apt, dear heart, to toss and groan in his sleep; you must rouse him gently and turn him over, he will go off again at once; but in summer cover his mouth with a handkerchief, he is apt to sleep with it open and the tiresome flies are so troublesome in the morning; and don't let him want, either, in the matter of money."
Adouev frowned, but his face quickly brightened again, when he read further.
"But I am sending what is needful, and I have just put into his hands a thousand roubles, only don't let him waste it on trifles, and don't let sharpers get hold of him, to be sure one hears there are so many rascals and unscrupulous creatures of every sort in your metropolis. And, in conclusion, excuse all shortcomings, dear brother-in-law— I have quite got out of the habit of letter-writing.
" I remain, " Your respectful and affectionate sister-in-law,
" A. Adouev."
" P.S.—I send with this some presents from the country— some raspberries from our garden, some white honey, as clear as teardrops, some linen for two dozen shirts and some household preserves. Eat and wear them, and may they do you good, and when they are done, I will send more. And keep an eye over Yevsay : he is a quiet fellow and sober, but I daresay in time he will be spoiled, if he is you must let him have a whipping."
Piotr Ivanitch laid the letter deliberately on the table, still more deliberately took up a cigar, and after rolling it in his hands, began to smoke. He deliberated a long while on the trick, as he mentally called it, which his sister-in-law was playing upon him. He began to analyse closely what they were doing with him and what he ought to do himself.
He resolved the whole incident into the following propositions. His nephew he knew nothing of, and consequently cared nothing about, and therefore his heart imposed on him no obligations of any kind to him; the matter must be judged simply by the light of reason and common justice. /His brother had married, he had entered upon married life for his own pleasure—why should he, Piotr Ivanitch, be burdened with the responsibility of his brother's son, he who had enjoyed none of the advantages • of matrimony ? There was obviously no reason, i But a point presented itself on the other side. The mother had packed her son straight off to him, to his protection, not knowing whether he was willing to undertake this responsibility, not even knowing whether he was in a position to do anything for his nephew. Granted this
was absurd; still if the deed was done and his nephew Jin Petersburg, without assistance, without acquaintance, J without even letters of recommendation, young and quite inexperienced .... would he be doing right to leave him uncared for, to throw him on the world without advice and warnings, and if anything should go wrong with him, jvguld he not feel answerable to his conscience ?
At this point Adouev chanced to recall how seventeen years ago, his dead brother and Anna Pavlovna had despatched him to Petersburg. They certainly had not been able to do anything for him in Petersburg, he had made his own way .... but he remembered her tears at the leave-taking, her blessing, quite maternal, her fond caresses, her pies, and last of all her parting words: " Ah, when our Sashenka—then a child of three—is grown up, perhaps you, brother, will be good to him." Here Piotr Ivanitch stood up and went with quick steps into the hall.
f' " Vassili!" he said, " when my nephew comes, don't send 1 him away. But go and find out whether the apartment above here has beenfake^ that was tQ.fetnot long ago^ and ifiTlias riot"Beeh let yet, say that I will retain it for myself. Ah, these are the presents ! ' Well," what are we to "do with them ? "
u The man from our shop saw them just now, as they brought them upstairs; he inquired if we could let him have the honey. ' I will give you a good price,' said he,' and the raspberries should he take . . . .'"
" Good ! give them to him. Well, and where are we to put the linen ? Wouldn't it do for chair covers ? Put away the linen then and put away the jam, we could eat that— it looks good."
Piotr Ivanitch had just settled himself to shave when Alexandr Fedoritch appeared. He was just going to throw himself on his uncle's neck, but the latter, holding his soft youthful hand in his powerful one, kept him at some distance from him, ostensibly to get a good look at him, but apparently more with a view of preventing this demonstration and confining him to shaking hands.
" Your mother writes truly," he said, " you are the living image of my late brother; I shoul
d have known you in the street. But you are better looking. Well I will go on
c
A COMMON STORY
Y
shaving without ceremony, and you sit here opposite me, so that I can see you, and let us have a talk."
So saying Piotr Ivanitch continued what he was doing as though none were present, and began to soap his cheeks, stretching them with his tongue, first one, and then the other. Alexandr was overwhelmed with confusion at this reception and did not know how to begin the conversation. He attributed his uncle's coolness to the fact that he had not taken up his quarters with him at once.
"Well, how is your mother? Is she quite well? I suppose she begins to feel her age?" asked his uncle, making various grimaces before the glass.
" Mamma is well thank God, Auntie Maria Pavlovna desires to be remembered to you," said Alexandr timidly.
" Auntie charged me to embrace you for " He got up
and went up to his uncle, to give him a kiss on the cheek, or the head, or the shoulder, or whatever part of him he could get at.
" It's time your aunt had more sense at her age, but I see she is just as foolish as she was twenty years ago."
Alexandr went back to his seat in bewilderment.
" You received a letter, uncle ? " he said.
"Yes, I did."
" Vassili Tihovitch Zayeshaloff," began Alexandr, " earnestly begs you to examine his affair and interest yourself in it"
" Yes, he writes so to me. Such lunatics are not extinct among you yet then ? "
Alexandr did not know what to think—he was completely dumbfoundered by these remarks.
" Forgive me, uncle," he began at last in trepidation
" What ? " ' '" Forgive me for not having come straight to you; for having put up at the Diligence Hotel. I did not know your rooms."
— " What is there to apologise for ? You did very properly. Your good mother—heaven knows what she is thinking of. How could you have come to me without knowing whether I could put you up, or not ? Mine are bachelor's quarters, as you can see, for one only; a hall, a drawing-room, a dining-room, a smoking-room and a study, a wardrobe-room and a dressing-room—there isn't a room to spare. I
-v
A COMMON STORY 35
should have been in your way and you in mine. ButT
h ave found aJ Hgfoff Wo far ynii in frh* hniigo
* w Ah! deaPuncle!" said Alexandr, " how can I thank you for this kind service ? " v >
And he leaped up again from his seat with the intention " I
of showing his gratitude both in word and deed.
" Gently, gently, don't touch me ! " said his uncle, " the razors are very sharp," I'm afraid of your getting cut, or cutting me." ^
Alexandr perceived that in spite of all his efforts he would | , n , not succeed that day in even once embracing and pressing ! ^-. to his heart his adored uncle and put off this project for a ^ future occasion.
"The room is pretty cheerful," began Pictr Ivanitch; " the look-out from the windows is rather on to walls, but of course you won't want to be always sitting at the window; when you are at home, you are always busy with something and haven't time to be gaping at a window. And it is not dear—forty roubles a month. There is an ante-room for vour maTT ' You must accustom yourself from the very be-1 ginning to live alone, without a nurse; to conduct your own little household, I mean to board at home, in a word to have a corner of your own— un chez sot, as the French say. There you will be able to entertain whom you please. However, when I dine at home, you are welcome, but o n other days—young men herejgenerally dine at an eating* houSl but I adviae yuiTtb send out for you7"3Tnher; at home you will be quieter and you won't be exposed to mixing with God knows who. Eh ? "
" I am very grateful, uncle."
" What is there to be grateful for ? Aren't you a relation ? I am only fulfilling my duty. Well, I will leave you now, I v am going out, I have my official work and also & factory ."
" I didn't know you had a factory, uncle."
" Yes, glass and porcelain works : but I am not the sole proprietor, mere are three of us partners."
" Is business good ?"
" Yes, fairly so; our sales are chiefly at the markets in the inland provinces. The last few years have been far from bad! If we have five years more like this, well and good. One partner to be sure is not very trustworthy—he does nothing but spend money, but I know how to keep
^
36 A COMMON STORY
him in check. Well, good-bye for the present. You go now and take a look at the town, stroll about, and dine somewhere, but come and have tea with me in the evening. I shall be at home, then we can talk a little. Here! Vassili, you show the room and help to get it ready."
"So this is how it is here, in Petersburg," thought Alexandr, sitting down in his new dwelling. " If my own uncle is like this, what will others be ? "
Young Adouev paced up and down his room deep in thought, but Yevsay talked to himself as he set the room to rights.
•' It's a queer way of living here," he muttered, in Piotr Ivanitch's kitchen. " I hear there's a baking once a month, the servants have their meals out. Ugh! my word, what people! A pretty thing, and they call themselves Peters-burgers ! Among us every dog has his own saucer to lap out of."
!^Alexandr seemed to share Yevsay's opinion though he was silent. He went up to the window and looked out upon a view of water-pipes, roofs, and brick walls of houses, black and filthy, and he compared it with what he had seen, just a fortnight before, from the window of his home in the country. His heart sank. - He went out into the street ; all was confusion, every one running in different directions, occupied only with his own affairs, scarcely glancing at those who passed. He remembered the little town which was the capital of his province, where a meeting with any one, whoever it might be, was always interesting in one way or another. Here Ivan Ivanitch would be going to see Piotr Piotrovitch—and every one in the town knows the reason why. Here is Maria Martinova coming home from vespers, and there Afanasy Savitch going out to fish. There a gendarme from the governor's would gallop past like mad for the doctor, and every one knew that Her Excellency's confinement was expected, though in the judgment of the various gossips and old women it was not proper to be aware of this fact too soon. Every one would be asking " boy or girl ?" and the ladies were all making caps worthy to celebrate the occasion. Here Matvai Matvyitch would come out of his house with his thick stick, at six o'clock in the evening, and every one knew that he was going to take his evening constitutional, without which
his digestion would suffer; and that he would infallibly stop at the window of the old councillor, who, they also knew, would be drinking his tea at this hour. If you met any one —no matter who—there would be a bow and a word or two, and even if there is any one you don't salute, at least you know who he is, and where he is going and why, and in his face is written : I too know who you are and where you are going and why. And if it should ever happen that two people meet who don't know each other, directly they see one another, the faces of both assume an expression of inquiry; they stand still and look round twice, and when they get home they describe the dress and appearance of the unknown personage, and conjectures and discussions will follow as to who. he is and where he comes from, and what is his object. But here with scarcely a glance they push along the way as though they were all enemies. ~ To begin with, Alexandr gazed with provincial curiosity at every one he met, and every respectably dressed man he took for either a minister, or an ambassador, or an author, " isn't he/' he thought, " and isn't that one ? " But soon he was weary of this—ministers, ambassadors, authors met him at every step.
He looked at the houses and grew still more gloomy, he
was depressed by the monotonous piles of stone, which
stretch like colossal tombstones one after another in one
unbroken mass. Here the street will end^' and there will
be op
en space to rest my eyes—he thought—or a hill or
greenness, or a broken-down wall. No, there the stone
ramparts begin again of houses all identical, with four rows
of windows. And that street ended, again there was some-
^ thing to shut one in, another row of the same houses. You
look to the right, to the left—on all sides/nemming you in
like ranks of giants, houses, houses and houses, stone and
stone, all the same and the same again; no freedom, no
; outlet for the eyes ; cramped in on all sides. It seemed as
; though men's thoughts and feelings too must be cramped
byit.
^^The first impressions of a provincial in Petersburg are disagreeable. It is all strange and depressing to him; no one notices him; he feels lost here; even the novelty, the variety of the crowds fail to please him. His provincial egoism is up in arms against everything he sees here, and
7
has not seen at home. He grows meditative and is carried back in thought to his own town. What a soothing vision! A house standing alone with sharp-pointed wall and a small avenue of acacias. Against the wall a kind of shed, a pigeon-house—the merchant Izumin is a devoted pigeon fancier; this was his reason for taking the house and building the pigeon-house against the wall; and every morning and evening he stands under the wall in his nightcap and dressing-gown^ a stick in his hand with a rag tied to the end "oTTt, ana whistles and waves the stick in the air. The house is exactly like a lighthouse : on all four sides it is all windows flush with the walls, a house of ancient construction ; it seems as though it were always going to fall down. Next it, is the small gray house of the surgeon spread out in semicircle with two wings like sentry-boxes, and all hidden away in the green foliage; the next house has turned its back on the street, the next is shut in by a mile of fence, from behind which rosy-cheeked apples peep from the trees and tempt the schoolboys. The houses all stand back from the church at a respectful distance, and all round it the fresh grass is springing up, between the tombstones. The Government offices are such that there is no mistake about their being Government offices; no one dare come near them except on business. But here in the capital you cannot distinguish them from private houses, and what's more, shameful to say, they even have shops in the same building. And there in the provincial town you need only walk through two or three streets and you feel the fresh air of the country and the hedges begin and the market-gardens and then open fields of spring corn. And the peace, the unchanging monotony—even in the street and in the people you find this same blessed stagnation ! And all live unconfined, with space to move in ; no one is cooped up; even the cocks and hens can run about in the streets, while the goats and cows nip the grass and the children are flying kites.
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