" Yes."
" Nice people ? *
" Oh, yes ! very nice. Such eyes, such shoulders!"
" Were there many pretty girls ? "
" Yes, indeed ; but it's a pity they are all so much alike. What one does or says in any special circumstances,
you notice the next repeats exactly the same, just as though it were a lesson learnt by heart. There was one—not altogether like the rest .... but otherwise there was no sign of independence nor character. Their movements, their looks—all exactly alike: you hear no original thought or flash of feeling—it is all disguised and covered up under the same external polish. It seems as though nothing would make them open out Is it possible that they will always be locked up and will never come out to any one ? Can it be that they wear stays that will always stifle the sigh of love and the groan of the tortured heart ? Can no liberty be given to emotion ? "
" Everything will come out to their husbands, though if they think like you—at least from what you say—a good many will remain old maids to the end of time. There are some idiotic enough to let what ought to be hidden and stilled come out before it is time—um! they pay for it afterwards in tears; it's a bad bargain !"
" Is it a question of bargains in this too, uncle ? "
" Yes, as in everything, my dear boy; and one who does not reckon the cost of a bargain we call a reckless fool. It is short and clear."
"Oh, but to lock up in your breast the generous impulses of the heart! "
" Oh, I know you will not lock them up; you are ready in the street, in the theatre, anywhere, to throw yourself on your friend's neck and sob."
" And why a reckless fool, uncle ? You should have said only that he is a man of strong passions, that a man who feels so is capable of everything generous and noble, and incapable "
" Incapable of reckoning, that is, reflection. He is a grand figure—your man of strong passions, of titanic emotions! How much of it pray is merely physical temperament? Transports, exultations indeed, the man is below the dignity of a man in all that, and has nothing to pride himself upon. We must ask whether he knows how v to control his feelings; if he knows how to do that, then he I is a man."
"According to you, feeling has to be controlled like steam," observed Alexandr, "now a little let oflf, then suddenly stopped, opening a valve and shutting it."
s
" Yes, nature has given man such a valve—and not for nothing—it is reason, and you don't always make use of it —it's a pity ! but you're a good sort of fellow !"
" No, uncle, it's sad to hear you; better let me go and make acquaintance with that lady who has lately arrived in
town -". V c a
"With whom? Madame Lubetsky ? Was she there yesterday ? " -*—*
" Yes, she talked to me a long while about you, asked after some business matter of hers."
"Oh, to be sure; by the way " The uncle took
a paper out of a box. "Take her that paper, tell her that only yesterday and by the merest chance they let me have it from the office; explain the matter clearly to her; of course you heard what I said to the official ? "
" Yes, I know, I know, I will explain it."
Alexandr clutched the paper with both hands, and stuffed it into his pocket Piotr Ivanitch looked at him.
" But what made you think of making her acquaintance ? She is not very charming, I should suppose, with a wart on her nose."
" A wart ? I don't remember. How did you notice that, uncle?"
" On her nose, and he did not notice it! What do you want from her ? "
" She is so kind and so distinguished."
" Could you not notice the wart on her nose, and yet have found out that she is kind and distinguished ? It's very queer. But stop—she has a daughter to be sure— that little brunette. Ah! now I don't wonder at it. So that is why you did not notice the wart on her nose."
Both smiled.
"But I do wonder, uncle," said Alexandr; "how you noticed the wart before the daughter ."
"Give me back the pSpeT; When you are there, I suppose you will let off all your feeling and altogether forget to shut the valve, you will make some mistake and there's no telling what you will explain."
" No, uncle, I won't make a mistake. As for papers, as you like, I won't give it then, but will go at once." And he vanished from the room.
Up to this time business had gone steadily on its usual
y
A COMMON STORY 67
course. At the office they noticed Alexandras abilities and had given him a pretty good position. And on the journal, too, Alexandr had become a person of consideration. He undertook the selection as well as the translation and correction of foreign articles, and wrote himself various v/theoretical articles on agriculture. His income was in his own opinion larger than he needed, though still insufficient for his uncle's ideas. But he was not always working for money. He had not renounced his consoling belief in another higher vocation. His youthful strength was equal to everything. He stole time from sleep, and office work, and wrote both verses and stories and historical sketches and biographies. His uncle did not now cover his screens with his compositions, but read them in silence, then gave a low whistle, or said, " Yes ! this is better than you used to do." A few articles appeared under a nom de plume. With a tremor of pleasure Alexandr listened to the favourable criticisms of friends, of whom he had a number, at his office, and at the coffee-house or at private houses. His most cherished dream—after love—was thus fulfilled. The future promised him much that was brilliant, many triumphs; a destiny—not altogether ordinary—seemed to be awaiting him—when suddenly
A few months had passed by. Alexandr was scarcely to be seen, he seemed to be lost. He went less often to his uncle's. The latter attributed it to his being busy, and did not disturb him. But the editor of the journal, meeting Piotr Ivanitch one day, complained that Alexandr kept back articles. The uncle promised to take the next opportunity of getting an explanation from his nephew. An opportunity presented itself three days after. Alexandr ran in the mornings into his uncle's apartment in a state of ex-^ ultation. There was a restless happiness apparent in every gesture and movement.
" Good morning,uncle; oh, how glad I am to see you!" he said, and was going to embrace him, but his uncle had time to escape behind the table.
" Good morning, Alexandr! Why have we seen nothing of you for so long ? "
" I . . . have been busy, uncle; I have been making an abstract from the German economists."
"Ah! why did the editor tell me such fibs then? He
68 A COMMON STORY
said to me three days ago that you were doing nothing for him—there's journalistic morality! Next time I meet him I will let him know. . . ."
"No, you must not say anything to him," interposed Alexandr; " I have not sent him my work, and that is why he told you."
" What is the matter with you ? You have such a holiday face ! have they given you an assistant pray, or the cross of honour? "
Alexandr shook his head.
" Well, is it money, then ? "
" No."
" Then, why do you look like a victorious general ? If there's nothing, don't disturb me, but sit down instead and write to Moscow to the Merchant Doubasoff, about despatching as quickly as possible the remainder of the money due. Read his letter through. Where is it? Here."
Both were silent and began to write.
" I have finished !" cried Alexandr in a few minutes.
" That's smart, you're a fine fellow! Show it me. What is this ? You are writing to me. ' Piotr Ivanitch !' His name is Timothy Nikovitch. How 520 roubles! 5200! What is the matter with you, Alexandr? "
Piotr Ivanitch laid down his pen and looked at his nephew. He reddened.
" Do you notice nothing in my face ? " he asked.
" Yes, some silliness. . . . Stop. . . . y ou are in love, " said Piotr Ivanitch. _ ^Alexandr was silent.
" It's soj the
n7 _ I have guesge&righj; L"
Alexandr with a triumphant smile and a beaming expression nodded energetically.
" So, that's it! How was it I didn't guess it at once ? So that's why you have grown lazy, and that's why we have seen nothing of you everywhere. The Zareyskys and the Skat-chins have been worrying me with 'Where's Alexandr Fedoritch ?' So he's been far away—in the seventh heaven!"
Eotr Ivanitch began to jwrite again.
/" W jjth yad inka Lubetsky ft" said Alexandr.
*» w l! didnt inqutffi," replied his uncle; "whoever it may be—they are all as silly as one another; it's all the same."
" All the same ! Nadinka ! that angel! is it possible you haven't noticed her ? can you say that she is like the other worldly, affected dolls ? You look at her face; what a tender deep soul lies behind it. She is not only a girl of feeling, but of thought .... a deep nature."
His uncle set to work scribbling on a paper with his pen, but Alexandr went on :
" In her talk you don't hear the hackneyed commonplace platitudes. How deeply she understands life! You poison life by your views, but Nadinka reconciles me to it."
Alexandr was silent for a minute and relapsed completely into reveries of Nadinka. Then he began again.
" When she raises her eyes, you see at once what a passionate and tender heart they interpret. And her voice, her voice! what melody, what softness in it! but when that voice sounds with an avowal .... no higher bliss on earth! -Uncle ! what a glorious thing life is ! how happy I am."
Tears were starting into his eyes; he flung himself on his uncle and embraced him with all his might.
" Alexandr !" screamed Piotr Ivanitch jumping up; "shut up your valve directly, you have let off all your steam I You silly fellow! look what you have done in one second ; just two idiocies; you have ru mpl ed my hair and spilt the ink. I thought you had quite got but of those ways. YotT "haven't been like this for a long while. Do for God's sake look at yourself in the glass; could there be a more silly countenance ? and not an idiot!"
" Ha, ha, ha! I am happy, uncle! "
"That's evident. Well, what am I to do now with the letter?" — ' . "
"Eet me—I will scrape it, and it will not be noticed," said Alexandr." He* Hung himself against "the table' wltT^a convulsive shock, began to scrape, to clean, to rub, and ru"Bbed a hole into the letter.
The ta ble tottered under the ru bbi ng an d shook the whatnot "Oh the what-not stood an alaBaster bust of Sophocles, or'iEschylus." The vibrailttrT made the respectable tragedian . first totter backwards and forwards once or twice on his I shaking pedestal; then he was shaken off the what-not, and V was smashed to shivers. _^
^>r Your third idiocy, Alexandr!" said Piotr Ivanitch, picking up the pieces, " it cost fifty roubles."
" I will pay for it, uncle! Oh 1 I will pay for it, but don't blame my emotion; it's pure and generous; I am happy, so happy ! Good God ! how sweet life is ! "
The uncle shook his head.
" When will you have more sense, Alexandr. Pay for it indeed !" he said. " That would be the fourth silliness. You want, I can see, to talk about your happiness. Well, there seems no help for it, so be it, I will give you a quarter of an hour; sit quietly, don't commit any fifth piece of stupidity, and talk away, and then, after that fresh stupidity you must go away; I have no time to spare. Well .... you are happy .... how is that? Tell me about it quickly."
" I admit it is silly, uncle, but such things cannot be told in this way," replied Alexandr with a modest smile.
" I have paved the way for you, but I see you want to begin with the ordinary prelude. That means that the conversation will last a whole hour; I haven't time for it; the post will not wait. You must stop, or better let me tell it myself."
" You ? that's amusing."
" H'm ! listen, it is extremely amusing! You saw your charmer yesterday by herself."
" But how do you know? " asked Alexandr, going up to his uncle.
"Sit down, sit down, for God's sake, and don't come near the table, you will be smashing something. It's all written in your face, I will read it off. Well, you had an explanation," said his uncle.
Alexandr blushed and was silent. It was clear that his uncle was right again.
" You were both very foolish as lovers always are," said Piotr Ivanitch.
The nephew made a gesture of impatience.
" It all began from trifles when you were left alone, from a fancy-work pattern perhaps," the uncle went on; " you asked whom she was working it for. She answered, ' For mamma or for auntie,' or something of that sort, and you shivered as if you were in a fever."
"There you have not guessed right; that was no fancy-work ; we were in the garden," Alexandr blurted out and relapsed into silence.
" Well, then, from flowers, I suppose," said Piotr Ivanitch; " perhaps from a yellow flower, it makes no difference what is before your eyes provided only it serves to start the conversation ; words don't come too readily to the tongue in such circumstances. You asked whether she liked flowers, she answered * Yes.' ' Why ?' you ask. ' Oh, because,' she said, and then you were both silent, because you wanted to say something altogether different and the conversation did not progress. Then you looked at one another, smiled and blushed."
" Oh, uncle, how you talk!" said Alexandr in evident confusion.
" Then," continued his inexorable uncle, " you began in a roundabout way to talk about a new world having opened itself to you. She looked suddenly at you, as though she were hearing something new and unexpected; you, I expect, were at your wits' end, and in confusion, then you said, scarcely audibly again, that only now you understood the value of life, that before you saw her—what her? Maria, or what ? "
" Nadinka."
"You had already seen her in a dream, that you had foreseen your meeting, that some affinity had brought you together, and that now you dedicate to her alone all your verses and prose. And, I expect, your hands weren't still a moment! no doubt you were upsetting or breaking something."
" Uncle ! you must have been listening to us!" shrieked Alexandr beside himself.
" Yes, I was there behind a bush. I have nothing better to do than to run after you and listen to all your absurdities."
" How then do you know all this?" asked Alexandr in perplexity.
" Wonderful, isn't it ? from Adam and Eve downwards, it's the same story for everybody with little variation. You a^writer and surprised at this ? Jtfow you will be walking on air for the next three days like an imbecile, throwing yourself on every one's neck. I should advise you to lock yourself in your room till that period is over and work off your foolishness on Yevsay, so that none else may see it Then you will come to your senses a little, and will obtain some further favour—a kiss for instance."
" A kiss from Nadinka! oh, what a high heavenly reward!" cried Alexandr almost weeping.
" Heavenly!"
" Why, do you call it earthly, material ? "
" Well, one must admit a kiss is an electric act; lovers are just like two electric batteries, both heavily charged; the electricity is let off in kisses, and when it's fully let off —then good-bye to love, the cooling process follows."
" Uncle!"
" Oh, I forgot; l material tokens of immaterial relations' are still promient objects in your brain. You will be collecting all sorts of rubbish again and poring and dreaming over them, and work will be laid on the shelf."
Alexandr at once clapped his hand on his pocket.
" What, there already ? so you will do exactly what men have done ever since the creation of the world"
" Then it is what you too have done, uncle ? "
" Yes, it's only a little sillier."
" Sillier! Don't you call it silliness just because my love will be deeper, stronger than yours, because I don't make light of my feelings, and turn them into ridicule as coldly as you, nor tear every veil off the sacred mystery."
"Your love will be just like other people's, nei
ther deeper nor stronger; and you too will tear the veil off the sacred mystery; the only difference is that you will believe in eternal, unchanging love, and will think about nothing else, and that is just what is so silly; you are only preparing for yourself more unhappiness than you need."
" Ah !" said Alexandr, " in spite of your prophecies, I will be happy, I will love once and for ever."
" Oh, no ! I foresee you will break a good many more of my properties before you've done. But that does not signify; love is love, no one hinders you; we don't generally take love in a boy of your age very seriously, only don't let it go so far as to make you neglect business, love is love and business is business."
" Well, I am making an abstract from the German."
" There, there, you are not doing anything of the sort, you are giving yourself up to * soft emotions,' and the editor will get rid of you."
" Let him ! I don't depend on him. Can I be thinking now of contemptible money—now, when "
" Contemptible money, indeed! You had better build yourself a hut upon the mountains, live on bread and water, and sing—
0 • A cottage poor with thee,
Is Paradise to me,'
only when you've no more contemptible money, don't come to me, I won't give you "
" I don't think I have often troubled you."
" So far, I'm thankful to say you haven't, only it may come to that if you neglect work; love too costs money; you want to be extra smart and lots of different expenses. Oh, love at twenty! Come that's contemptible, contemptible if you like ! There's no sense in it."
" What love has sense in it, uncle ? Love at forty ? "
" I don't know what love is like at forty, but love at thirty-seven "
" Like yours ? "
" Yes, if you like, like mine."
" That is, no love at all."
" How do you know ? "
" Do you mean to say you can love ? "
" Why not ? Am I not a man, or am I seventy ? Only if I love, I love reasonably, I reflect on myself, I don't smash or upset things."
" Reasonable love! a fine kind of love that reflects on itself!" remarked Alexandr scoffingly, "that never forgets itself for an instant."
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