A common story

by Ivan Goncharov

  "Are you convinced that you have talent? without it

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  56 A COMMON STORY

  of course you can do hackwork in literature but what is the use of it ? If you have talent, it is a different matter; you can work; you will do much that is worth doing and besides it is capital—it is worth more than your hundred serfs/'

  " Do you measure this too in money ? Fame! fame! that is the poet's true reward."

  "There is no such thing as fame nowadays. There

  is notoriety, but of fame you hear nothing at all, or perhaps

  it has taken to appearing in another fp nn; the bette r a

  man writes the more money he gets, jllbwever in these

  I days* a decent author lives decently, he is not frozen and

  starved to death in a garret, though people don't run after

  him in the street and point at him with their fingers, as

  though he were a clown; they have, learnt that "a poet is

  . not a god but a man; that he looks, walks, thinks, and

  j does silly things just like other people; why do you look

  J like that ? "

  " Like other people—rwhat will you say next, uncle ? how can v any one say such things ? A poet is marked off by a special stamp; there are mysterious tokens of the existence in him of higher powers."

  " Yes, just as in some others—in the mathematician and the watchmaker or even the manufacturer, like myself. Newton, Gutenberg, Watt, were also endowed with higher powers, like Shakespeare, Dante and the rest. If I could manage by some special process to work our Petersburg pay till china could be made of it better than Saxony or Sevres, do you consider that this would not show the possession of higher powers ? "

  " You are mixing up art with manufactures, uncle/' " God forbid! Art is one thing, manufacture is another, but there may be creative genius in one just as much as in the other, and similarly there may not. If there is not, the manufacturer is simply called a manufacturer, and not a creative genius, and the poet too without genius is not a poet, but a rhymer .... Haven't you been told about this at the university? Pray what did you learn l^there ? "

  —The uncle began to be vexed with himself for having been led into such an exposition of what he considered commonplace truisms.

  " It's like a ' sincere outburst of feeling/ " he reflected. "Show me what have you there?" he demanded; " verses ? "

  His uncle took the papers and began to read the first page.

  " Whence the cloud of pain and sorrow Swooping sometimes suddenly On the heart with life at conflict/ 1

  He began to smoke a cigar and continued :—

  " Filling it with passion high.

  " Why in time of storm and tempest Doth some gloomy dream of ill, With unfathomable sadness Strike the inmost spirit chill.

  " Of the distant skies the silence Fills us now with dread and fright-

  j»

  " 'Dread' and ' fright* one and the same thing."

  " I gaze upwards ; the moon soundless,"

  "That's not so bad and not good!" he said as he finished it. However others have begun worse than that; you can try a little, write, work at it if you have the inclination; possibly talent may show itself; then it will be a different matter."

  Alexandr was very downcast. He had expected a very different criticism. He was a little consoled by reflecting that his uncle was a cold man almost'destitute of soul.

  " Here is a translation from Schiller/ 1 he said.

  " Well; I will look at it. Have you learnt foreign languages too then ? "

  " I know French, German, and a little English."

  " I congratulate you, you should have told me so before; there's a good deal to be made of you. You talked to me long ago about political economy, philosophy, archaeology, God knows what all. But of the most important thing not a word—misplaced modesty. I will get you some literary work at once."

  " Really, uncle ? how good you are!—allow me to embrace you."

  " Wait till I have got it for you."

  44 Will you not show any of my compositions to my future chief to give him an idea of me?"

  " No, it is not necessary: if there is any need, you show it yourself, but perhaps it will not be needed. Do you make I me a present of your dissertations and compositions ? "

  " Make you a present of them ?—by all means, uncle," said Alexandr, who was rather flattered by this request on the part of his uncle. " Would you not like me to make you an index of all the articles in chronological order ? "

  "No, there's no need of that .. . Thanks for the present. Yevsay! take these papers to Vassily."

  " Why to Vassily ? surely to your study."

  " He asked me for some paper to paste on something. ,,

  "What, uncle?" cried Alexandr in horror, clutching the heap back again.

  44 You gave them to me you know, and what does it matter to you what use I make of your present ? "

  44 You are quite ruthless !" he groaned in despair, clasping his manuscripts in both hands to his heart.

  44 Alexandr, listen to me," said his uncle, taking the manuscript from him:— 44 you will not have to blush hereafter and you will thank me for it"

  Alexandr let the manuscripts drop out of his hands.

  44 There, take them away, Yevsay," said Piotr Ivanitch. 44 Well now your room is tidy and nice, there is no rubbish lying about; it will depend on you whether it is filled with worthless litter or with something sensible. Let us go to the factory for a walk, to get a breath of fresh air and to see how they are working."

  One morning Piotr Ivanitch took his nephew to the office of the department, and while he himself was talking to his friend the chief of the department, Alexandr began to make acquaintance with this new world. He was absorbed in dreaming of schemes and was cudgelling his brains to think what political question would be put for him to solve, and meanwhile he stood and looked about.

  44 Exactly like my uncle's factory!" he decided at last: 44 Just as there one overseer takes a piece of the soft stuff, throws it into a machine, turns it once, twice, three times— and lo and behold it comes out a cone, an oval, or a semicircle ; then he passes it to another, who bakes it in the fire, a third gilds it, a fourth engraves it and it comes out a cup,

  or a vase, or a saucer. And here; a casual petitioner comes in, almost crawling, and with a pitiful smile hands in a paper —an overseer takes it, only just runs his pen across it, and hands it to another, who throws it into a mass of thousands of other papers—but it is not lost; stamped with a number it passes unharmed through twenty hands, multiplying and begetting more of its own kind. At last when it is covered with the dust of ages, they disturb it and deliberate over it And every day, every hour, to-day, to-morrow and for all time the bureaucratic machine works smoothly, without hitch or pause, as though not made of men, but as though it were made of wheels and springs. But where is the intelligence animating and moving this edifice of papers ? " thought Alexandr: " in the books, in the papers themselves or in the heads of these men ? "

  And what faces he saw here; such faces seem not to be met in the street walking in the light of heaven: here one fancies they were born, and reared to manhood in their places and here they will die. Adouev looked attentively at the chief of the department; like Jupiter the Thunderer, he opens his mouth—and a Mercury runs up with a copper number on his breast; he holds out his hand with some paper; ten hands are stretched out to take it

  " Ivan Ivanitch! " said he.

  Ivan Ivanitch jumped up from a table, ran up to Jupiter and was beside him in the twinkling of an eye. - And Alexandr felt overawed, though he could not himself have said why.

  " Give me my snuff-box!"

  With both hands he held the open snuff-box to him in a servile manner.

  " Now examine him 1" said the chief pointing to Adouev.

  11 So this is who is to examine me!" thought Adouev, looking at the yellow face and threadbare elbows of Ivan Ivanitch. "Is it possible t
hat this man could settle questions of State?"

  " Have you a good hand ? " asked Ivan Ivanitch.

  " A good hand ? "

  " Yes, a good handwriting. I will trouble you to copy that paper."

  Alexandr was surprised at this request; but he did so. Ivan Ivanitch made a grimace when he looked at what he had written.

  " A poor handwriting," he said to the chief of the department The latter looked at it.

  " Yes, it's not good; he can't write fair copies. Well let him for a time write out absence permits, and then when he is a little used to it, set him to writing forms for deeds; perhaps he will do; he has been educated at a university."

  Very soon Adouev too became one of the springs of the machine. He wrote, wrote, wrote unendingly, and began to wonder how it was possible to do anything else in the morning; but when he remembered his dissertations, he blushed.

  " Uncle!" he thought; " in one thing you were right, cruelly right; can it be so in everything ? can I have been mistaken in those inspired thoughts kept to myself alone and that warm trust in love, in friendship, and in men, and in myself? What is life then ? "

  He bent over his papers and scribbled all the more zealously, but tears were glistening on his eyelashes.

  "Fortune certainly smiles upon you,"said Piotr Ivanitch to his nephew; "I was in an office a whole year to begin with without salary, but you have been put on the upper scale of salary at once; why it's 750 roubles and with the Christmas extras it will be 1000 roubles. It's splendid for the first start! The chief of the department praises you; only he says you are careless; sometimes you don't put in your stops, and sometimes you will forget to write a synopsis of the paper. Pray get out of that way; the chief thing is to pay attention to what is before your eyes, and don't go flying off aloft."

  The uncle pointed upwards with his hand. From this time he behaved more affectionately to his nephew.

  " What a splendid fellow my head-clerk is, uncle !" said Alexandr one day.

  " And how do you know that ? "

  " I have made friends with him. Such an elevated soul, such a pure noble turn of mind! and with his sub too; he is a man, I think, of firm will, of iron character."

  " You have had time already to make friends with him ? "

  " Yes, indeed."

  "Did not your head-clerk invite you to go to see him on Thursdays ? "

  " Yes, indeed; every Thursday. I fancy he feels a special attraction to me."

  " And he asked his sub to lend him money ? "

  "Yes, uncle, a trifle. I gave him twenty-five roubles which I had with me; he asked for eighty more."

  " You have given it him already! Ah!" said his uncle with vexation:—" I am partly to blame in the matter, for not having warned you beforehand; but I thought that you weren't simple to such a point as to lend money after only a fortnight's acquaintance. There is no help for it now, we will divide the guilt; for twelve and a half roubles you may count on me."

  " Why, uncle, surely he will return it ? "

  "You needn't reckon on that! I know him; I lost 100 roubles over him when I was in that office. He borrows from every one. Now, if he asks you again, you tell him that I beg him to remember his debt to me—he will soon stop ! and don't go to see him."

  " Why, uncle ? "

  " He's a gambler. He will sit you down with two more fine fellows like himself, and they will play into each other's hands and leave you without a penny."

  " A gambler!" said Alexandr in amazement, " is it possible ? He seems so inclined to sincere outbursts."

  " But you tell him, as though incidentally in conversation, that I have taken all your money to take care of it, and you will see whether he will be so inclined to sincere outbursts, and whether he will ever invite you to come to him on Thursdays."

  Alexandr grew thoughtful, his uncle shook his head.

  " And you imagined that they were angels sitting by you there 1 Sincere outbursts, special attraction, indeed! So it seems it has never struck you to reflect whether they might not be scoundrels ? It was a pity for you to come !" he said; " certainly, it was a pity 1"

  One day Alexandr was only just awake when Yevsay gave him a large parcel with a note from his uncle.

  " At last here is some literary employment for you," was written on the letter. "I met an acquaintance of mine, a journalist yesterday; he has sent you some work on trial."

  Alexandr's hands trembled with pleasure when he broke the seal of the parcel. It was a German handwriting.

  " What is it—prose ? " he said, " about what ? "

  And he read written above in pencil.

  " On manures, an article for our column on agriculture. You are requested to return it as soon as possible."

  A long while he sat gloomily before the article, then slowly, with a sigh, he took his pen and began to translate it. In two days the article was ready and despatched.

  " Capital, capital! " said Piotr Ivanitch a few days later. " The editor was very pleased with it, only he thinks the style is a little too ornate; but one can't expect everything at first. He wants to make your acquaintance. Call on him to-morrow at seven in the evening; he will have another article for you by then."

  " On the same subject again, uncle ? "

  " No; on something different; he did tell me but I have forgotten—oh! yes—on potato starch. You must have been born, Alexandr, with a silver spoon in your mouth. I begin at last to suspect that something will be made of you; soon perhaps I shall stop saying to you, * Why did you come ?' A month has not gone by, and already good luck is being showered upon you from all sides. 1000 roubles from your office, and the editor offers ioo roubles a month for sixty-four pages of print; that makes 2200 roubles you know! No, I did not begin like that! " he said, knitting his eyebrows a little. " Write and tell your mother you are provided for and how. I will answer her too, I will tell her that in return for her kindness to me, I have done all I could for you."

  " Mamma will be—very grateful to you, uncle; and I too," said Alexandr with a sigh, but this time he did not throw himself on to his uncle's neck.

  CHAPTER III

  More than two years had passed by. Who would have recognised our provincial in the fashionably-dressed and easy-mannered young man ? He had changed very much, and grown manly. The roundness of the lines of his boyish face, the softness and delicacy of his skin, the down on his

  chin had all disappeared. The bashful shyness and graceful awkwardness of his movement had gone. His features had become mature and grown into a physiognomy and the physiognomy showed character. The lilies and roses had disappeared as though under a light covering of sunburn. The down on his face had turned into slight whiskers. His light hesitating step had become a firm even gait. His voice had gained some bass notes. From the roughly outlined sketch had come a finished portrait. The boy had turned into a man. In his eyes was the light of self-reliance and confidence. The ecstatic expression of Alexandr's face in former days was toned down by a slight shade of melancholy : the first sign of doubt having stolen into his heart, and perhaps the only consequence of his uncle's lessons and the merciless analysis to which he exposed everything which presented itself to Alexandras eyes or heart. Alexandr had at last acquired tact, which is the power of adapting oneself to men. He did not throw himself into everybody's arms especially after the man, inclined to sincere outbursts, in spite of his uncle's warnings, had cleared him out at cards on two occasions, and the man of firm character and iron will had borrowed a considerable sum of money from him. Other people too and other incidents worked in the same direction. At one place he noticed how they laughed in their sleeves at his youthful enthusiasm, and nicknamed him the romantic. At another they hardly paid him any attention, because no one could hope to gain or lose anything from him. He did not give dinners, did not keep a carriage, and did not play high. At first Alexandr's heart was sick and sore at these discrepancies between his rose-coloured dreams and the reality. It never entered his head to ask himself: But what
have I done that is distinctive, in what am I distinguished from the common herd ? Where are my merits and why ought they to notice me? But meanwhile his vanity suffered

  Then he began by degrees to admit the thought that in life clearly all was not roses, but that there were also thorns which sometimes prick a little, but not seriously and not as his uncle made out. And then he began to learn to control himself, he did not so often betray his emotions and impulses and more rarely spoke in a high-flown language, at least before strangers.

  But all the same, to the no small regret of Piotr Ivanitch, he was still far from coldly analysing into their first elements all that moves and agitates the heart of man. As for dragging to light all the mysteries and enigmas of the heart, he did not like even to listen to it.

  Piotr Ivanitch would give him something of a lesson in the morning: Alexandr would listen, be perplexed or deeply thoughtful, and then he would go out somewhere in the evening and come home a different man. The charm and intoxication of the ball-room, the strains of music, the bare shoulders, the ardent glances, the smiles of rosy lips would not let him sleep all night. Visions floated before him of the waist which he had pressed in his arms, of the prolonged languorous gaze which had been cast on him at parting, of the feverish breath which had ravished him in the waltz, or the conversation at the window whispered under cover of the murmur of the mazurka, when the eyes spoke so sincerely, while the tongue was talking of no matter what. And his heart beat; he clutched at his pillow convulsively and lay tossing for hours in his bed.

  u Where is love? Oh, love, I thirst for thee !" he said, " and will love come soon ? when will these divine moments come to me, the delicious torture, the shudder of bliss, tears " and so forth.

  The next day he would make his appearance at his uncle's.

  " What a party it was, uncle, last night at the Zareysky's!" he said, absorbed in memories of the ball.

  " Was it a pleasant one ? "

  " Oh, heavenly."

  " A pretty good supper ? "

  " I did not have any."

  " How was that? No supper at your age when you can get it! But I see you have adopted our ways in good earnest, even more than you need to. Was everything successful then ? the dress, the lighting ? "