A common story

by Ivan Goncharov

  " Don't make light of it though; consult a doctor."

  " Other people have already given me that advice, but no doctors or opodeldocs can be of use to me; my disease is not physical."

  " What is the matter with you ? You haven't been gambling, or lost money ? " asked Piotr Ivanitch with lively interest

  "You can never imagine trouble apart from money matters I" replied Alexandr, trying to smile.

  " What is the trouble then ? Everything is all right at your home—I know that from the letters to which your mother treats me every month; at the office nothing can be

  worse than it was; then come trifling matters—love, I suppose."

  " Yes, love; but do you know what has happened ? when you know you will be horrified."

  " Tell me; it's a long while since I've been horrified," said his uncle, taking a seat; " however, it's not difficult to conjecture; no doubt, they have deceived you "

  11 You can reason so calmly, uncle, while I " said

  Alexandr, " am suffering in earnest; I am wretched, I am really ill."

  " Is it possible that you have grown so thin thro ugh love ? What a disgraceful thing ! No, yuiTTiave been iH,"and iTo"W you are beginning to recover; and it's high time ! Seriously, this folly had been dragging on for a year and a half. A little longer, and upon my word, I should have begun to believe in eternal and unchanging love."

  " Uncle !" said Alexandr, " have pity on me; there is a hell now in my heart."

  " Eh ? what then ? "

  Alexandr drew his armchair up to the table and his uncle began to move away from his nephew's proximity the inkstand, the paper-weights, &c.

  " He comes at midnight," he thought, " hell in his heart; he'll infallibly smash something."

  " Sympathy I don't get from you, and I don't ask it," began Alexandr; "I ask for your help, as my uncle, my relation I seem foolish to you—isn't it so ? "

  " Yes, you would, if you were not to be pitied."

  " You feel pity for me ? "

  "Great pity. Do you suppose I am a flint? A good, clever, well brought-up boy, throwing himself away and what for ? a mere trifle."

  " Show me that you feel for me."

  " In what way ? Money, you say, you don't want."

  " Money ! oh, if my trouble had been only from want of money, how I would have blessed my fate !"

  " Don't speak so," observed Piotr Ivanitch seriously; "you are a boy—you would curse and not bless your fate! I have cursed it more than once in bygone days— even I!"

  " Give me a patient hearing."

  " Shall you be staying long ? " asked his uncle.

  " Yes, I want all your attention; why ? "

  " So as to know whether we shall want to have supper. As a rule I am in the habit of going to bed without supper; but now, since we shall be sitting up a long while, we will have a little, and will drink a bottle of wine, and meantime you tell me everything."

  "You can eat supper?" asked Alexandr in amazement

  " Yes, indeed I can ; and won't you ? "

  " I—supper ! why, even you will not be able to swallow a morsel when you know that it is a matter of life and death."

  " Of life and death ? " repeated his uncle; " well, that is certainly a grave matter; however, we will try; perhaps we shall manage to swallow some."

  He rang the bell.

  " Bring in," he said to the valet who appeared, " whatever there is for supper, and tell them to fetch a bottle of Lafitte with a green seal."

  The valet disappeared.

  " Uncle! you are not in a suitable frame of mind to listen to the sad story of my unhappiness," said Alexandr, taking his hat: " I had better come to-morrow."

  " No, no, not at all," interrupted Piotr Ivanitch briskly, keeping his nephew by the hand, " I am always in the same frame of mind. To-morrow—not a doubt of it—you will break in upon breakfast, or worse still—on business. It would be far better to have it all over at once. Supper will not hinder matters. I shall hear and understand all the better. On an empty stomach, you know, it's not well "

  They brought in supper.

  " Now, Alexandr; let me " said Piotr Ivanitch.

  " No, I don't want anything to eat, uncle!" said Alexandr impatiently, shrugging his shoulders, as he saw his uncle busying himself over the supper.

  " At least drink a glass of wine; it's not bad wine!"

  Alexandr shook his head in refusal.

  " Well, then, take a cigar and tell your story, and I will be all ears," said Piotr Ivanitch, setting briskly to work upon his supper.

  " Do you know C ount N ovinsky ? " asked Alexandr, after a short pause.

  1

  " Count Platon ? "

  " Yes."

  " We are friends; why ? "

  " I congratulate you on such a friend—he's a scoundrel!"

  Piotr Ivanitch at once ceased munching and gazed in surprise at his nephew.

  11 What a discovery !" he said; " do you know him ? "

  " Very well."

  " Have you known him long ? "

  " Three months."

  " How is that ? I have known him for five years, and always considered him an honourable man, and indeed you

  will not hear from any one All praise him, but you run

  him down."

  " Is it long since you have taken to standing up for people, uncle ? In the past it used to be "

  "Even in the past I always stood up for honourable men."

  " Show me where there are any honourable men ? " said Alexandr scornfully.

  " Why, such as you and I; in what are we not honourable ? The Count—if the talk of him can be believed—is also an honourable man ; still, who knows ? there is something bad in every one; but all men are not bad."

  " Yes, all, all!" said Alexandr with decision.

  " How about you ? "

  " I ? I at least bear away from the world a heart broken but unstained from baseness, a spirit shattered but free from the reproach of lying, hyprocrisy, treachery; I am not corrupted."

  " So much the better; come, let us see. What has the Count done to you ? "

  " What has he done ? He has robbed me of everything."

  "Be more precise. By the word everything one may understand God knows what all—money, for instance; he is not doing that."

  " Of what is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world," said Alexandr.

  " What might this have been ? "

  " Everything—happiness, life."

  " Here you are alive!"

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  A COMMON STORY 131

  " More's the pity—yes! But this life is worse than a hundred deaths."

  11 Tell me straight out what has happened."

  " It's awful!" exclaimed Alexandr, " My God! my God!"

  " I have it! hasn't he enticed your charmer away from you—that—what's-her-name ? Oh yes ! he's masterly at it; it would be hard for you to compete with him. Oh, the rascal!" said Piotr Ivanitch, raising a piece of turkey to his mouth.

  " He shall pay dearly for his masterliness 1" said Alexandr, fuming. " I am not going to give way without a

  struggle Death shall decide which of us is to gain

  Nadinka. I wiU cal l out this v ulgar gallantj he shall not live, he shall noFenjoy the treasure Tie tias^robbed me of. I will wipe him off the face of the earth !"

  Piotr Ivanitch began to laugh.

  " Oh, the provinces! " he said; " a propos of the Count, Alexandr, did he say whether they had sent him the china from abroad? He ordered the set in the spring; I should like to have a look at "

  " We are not talking about china, uncle; did you hear what I was saying ? " interrupted Alexandr severely.

  " Hm ! " his uncle mumbled in assent, picking a small bone.

  " What do you say ? "

  " Oh nothing. I am listening to what you are saying."

  "Answer me one word; will you do me the greatest service ? "

  "What is it?"

  A " Will you consent to be my
second ? "

  I"

  The cutlets are quite cold!" remarked Piotr Ivanitch with annoyance, pushing away the dish,

  "You are smiling, uncle?"

  Well; how is one to listen to such stuff: you ask for a second ? "

  " What is your answer ? "

  " It's a matter of course; I will not come."

  " Very well; some one else shall be found, some outsider, who will come to my aid in this bitter wrong. I only ask you to take the trouble to communicate with the Count to learn what conditions."

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  132 A COMMON STORY

  " I cannot, I could not bring my tongue to propose such an imbecility to him. ,,

  " Then good-bye ! " said Alexandr, taking his hat.

  "What! are you going already? and won't you have any wine ? "

  Alexandr walked to the door, but he sank down on a chair near the door in utter exhaustion.

  " Whom can I go to ? whose help can I get ? " he said in a low voice.

  "Listen, Alexandr?" began Piotr Ivanitch, wiping his lips with a napkin and moving an armchair to his nephew. " I see that I must talk to you in earnest. Let us talk it over. You have come to me for assistance; I will assist you, only not in the way you imagine, and on condition—that you be guided by me. Don't ask any one to be your second; there will be no use in it. For a trifle you will make a scandal, it will be spread about everywhere, people will laugh at you, or worse still, make use of it to injure you. No one will consent, but even if some madman could be found to second you, it would be all for nothing. The Count will not fight; I know him."

  " Not fight! is there no grain of manliness in him ?" observed Alexandr with bitter malice; " I should not have suspected he was as base as that!"

  " He is not base, but only sensible."

  " Tell me with whom are you chiefly angry—with the Count, or with her—what's-her-name—Anuta, is it ? "

  " I hate her, I despise her," said Alexandr.

  " Let us begin with the Count; let as suppose that he accepts your challenge, let us even suppose that you find a fool to second you—what will come of it ? The Count will kill you, like a fly, and every one will laugh at you afterwards ; a fine revenge. Let us even suppose that you did by some accident kill him—what sense is there in it ? would you bring back your charmer's love by that? No, she would only hate you for it, and besides, they would send

  you for a soldier And what is the chief consideration;

  you would tear your hair in despair at your behaviour another day and would quickly have grown cold to. your charmer. Is she the only one in the world—your Maria or Sophia—what's-her-name ? "

  " They call her Nadyezhda."

  " Nadyezhda ? then who is Sophia ? "

  " Sophia 1 oh, that was in the country," said Alexandr reluctantly.

  " Do you see ? " continued his uncle, " there it was Sophia, here it's Nadyezhda, somewhere else it will be Maria. The heart is a very deep well; it's a long while before you sound it to the bottom. It goes on loving till old age."

  " No, the heart loves once."

  " And you go on repeating what you have heard from others. The heart goes on loving as long as its strength is not all spent. It lives its life and also, like everything else in man, has its youth and its old age. If one love has failed, it only dies away, and is still until the next; if a second time it's thwarted, it still has the power, so long as its love is unavailing, to love again for a third and a fourth time, until at last the heart puts all its strength into some one happy union, when nothing thwarts it, and then it slowly and gradually grows cold. With some men love was successful the first time, so they go crying out that one can love once only. So long as a man is in good health and not in decrepitude "

  "You always talk of youth, uncle, meaning, of course, material love."

  " I talk of youth because love in old age is a blunder, an abnormality. And how about material love ? There is no such love, or rather it is not love, just as there is no love purely ideal. Where was I ? .... oh, you'd been sent for a soldier; besides this, after this scandal your charmer wouldn't allow you in her sight. You would have injured her and yourself too for nothing—do you see ? I hope we have worked out this question conclusively on one side. Now "

  Piotr Ivanitch poured himself out some wine and drank it.

  "What a blockhead!" he said, "he has sent up cold Lafitte."

  Alexandr sat in silence with drooping head.

  " Now, tell me," continued his uncle, warming the glass of wine with both hands, " why did you want to wipe the Count off the face of the earth ? "

  " I have already told you why; has he not blasted my happiness ? He has pounced like a wolf "

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  134 A COMMON STORY

  " On the fold !" put in his uncle. " He has robbed me of all," Alexandr went on. " He has not robbed; he only came and took it. Was he bound to inquire whether your charmer was taken or not ? I don't understand that absurdity of which lovers have been guilty from the creation of the world—that of getting angry with a rival. Can anything be more senseless—wipe him off the face of the earth! why ? because he is found agreeable ! But was your—what's her name ?—Katinka— averse to him ? She yielded of herself, she has ceased to love you—it's useless to quarrel—you won't bring her back! -And to insist—is egoism ! To demand fidelity from a wife —there is some sense in that; in that case an obligation has been entered into ; the essential welfare of the family often depends on it; but even then one can't demand that she should not love any one—you can only demand that she— hm, well .... And haven't you yourself done everything you could to give her away to the Count ? Have you made any fight for her ? "

  "Why, here I am wanting to fight," said Alexandr, jumping up from his place, " and you would put a stop to

  my honourable impulse "

  " Fight with a cudgel in your hand, I daresay!" interrupted his uncle; " the civilised world has other weapons. You ought to have fought a duel of another kind with the Count before the beauty's eyes."

  Alexandr looked in perplexity at his uncle. " What kind of duel ? " he asked.

  " I will tell you directly. How have you acted up till now?"

  Alexandr, with a great deal of circumlocution, in chaotic fashion, told him the whole course of the affair.

  "Do you see? it is you who have been to blame in everything all round," was Piotr Ivanitch's comment after listeniqg with a scowl. " How many stupid things you have done ! Ah, Alexandr, what evil genius brought you here ! it wasn't worth while for you to come. You might have been doing all these things at home, by the lake, with your aunt. Ah, how can any one be so childish—make scenes— fly into a fury ? fie ! Who does these things nowadays ? What if your—what's-her-name—Julia—tells it all to the Count ? But no, there is no danger of that, thank goodness.

  She's so sensible of course, that in answer to his questions about your relations she has said "

  4 'What has she said ?" asked Alexandr, hastily.

  " That she had been making a fool of you, that you had been in love with her, that she hated you, could not bear you —as they always do in such cases."

  "Do you suppose—that she—has said that?" asked Alexandr, turning paler.

  " Without the least doubt. Can you imagine that she is relating to him how you used to pick yellow flowers together there in the garden ? What simplicity ! "

  " What kind of a duel, though, with the Count ? " asked Alexandr with impatience.

  "Why, you ought not to have been rude to him, and avoided him, and given him sulky looks but, quite the contrary, you should have replied to his friendliness by twice, three times, ten times as much friendliness; as for the—what's her name—Nadinka ? I fancy that's not it—you shouldn't have exasperated her with reproaches, you should have been indulgent with her caprices, and have maintained an appearance of noticing nothing, as though any change were something quite impossible. You ought not to have let them get so far as an intimate acquaintance, you should ha
ve broken in on their tite-d-tites skilfully—as though accidentally—you should have been everywhere with them—have even gone riding with them—and all the while you should be silently challenging your rival before her eyes, and should lay bare his weak points, as though in surprise at them, without forethought, good-naturedly, even reluctantly and compassionately, and little by little draw off him the disguise in which a young man gets himself up before a pretty girl. You ought to have taken notice what struck and dazzled her most in him and then have skilfully touched on those very points, presented them plainly, and shown them in their everyday light, and have proved that the new hero is nothing particular in himself, and has only assumed this exalted get-up for her benefit. And to do all this, coolly, patiently, skilfully—that's the duel as it is in our age ! But it's not a game for such as you !"

  At this point Piotr Ivanitch drank off a glass and at once poured out some more wine.

  " Despicable dissimulation! have recourse to double-

  dealing to gain a woman's heart!" remarked Alexandr indignantly.

  " You would have recourse to the cudgel; pray, is that any better? By dissembling one may keep some one's affection ; by force—I hardly think so! The desire of getting rid of your rival I understand; in that way you would have succeeded in keeping the woman you love for yourself, you would have forestalled or averted danger—it's very natural! but to kill him because he has inspired love is exactly as though you stumbled and hurt yourself and then hit the place, on which you stumbled, as childen do. You may think as you please, but the Count is not to blame ! I see you know nothing of the mysteries of the heart, that's why your amours and your novels are both in such a poor way."

  " Amours !" said Alexandr, shaking his head contemptuously ; " but is a love very flattering or very lasting that is inspired by dissimulation ? "

  " I don't know about it being flattering, that's as a man likes to look at it; it's quite a matter of indifference to me. I haven't the highest opinion of love in general—you know that. As far as I'm concerned, I should be glad if there were no such thing at all, but that such a love is more lasting I am sure. There is no dealing straightforwardly with the heart. It is a strange instrument. Inspire a passion however you like, but retain it by your intelligence. Dissimulation—that is one side of intelligence, there is nothing despicable in it. There is no need to disparage your rival and resort to slandering; you would set your charmer against you in that way. . .. you must only shake off him the spangles in which he dazzles her, and set him before her as a plain ordinary man, and not a hero .... I think it is quite excusable to defend one's own interests by honorable forms of dissimulation which are not disdained even in warfare. Why, you were wanting to get married ! a pretty husband you would have been, if you had begun to make scenes with youi wife and show your rival a stick, and you'd none the less have won—ahem !"