"I? Oh!" began Alexandr, casting his eyes up to heaven, " I would have consecrated my whole life to her; I would have lain down at her feet. But did I not show Nadinka how I could love ? "
So you don't believe in feeling at all, when it i^not shown as you wish it to be ? Strong feeling is often^on-cealed." *.
"You don't want to persuade me, ma tante, that such is V the feeling concealed by my uncle, for instance ? " V^ Lizaveta Alexandrovna suddenly blushed. She could not put agree inwardly with her nephew, that emotion without any kind of expression was a somewhat dubious thing, that possibly it was non-existent altogether, that if it did exist it /vould have forced its way out; and that over and above love itself its external manifestations were possessed of an inexpressible charrri.
Here she passed in mental review every period of her married life and fell into a deep reverie. Her nephew's indiscreet hint stirred in her heart the secret which she was hiding in its depths and roused it to the question—was she happy ?
She had no right to complain ; all the outward conditions of happiness, of which the world is in pursuit, were fulfilled according to the programme laid down.
Her husband had worked untiringly and continued still to do so. But what was the real aim of his labours ? Did he work for the common ends of humanity, fulfilling the task laid on him by destiny, or only for petty objects to attain the consideration of rank and wealth among people, or
K
perhaps that he might not become the slave of poverty, of circumstance ? God only knew.
Lizaveta Alexandrovna could only come to the mournful conclusion that she and love for her were not the sole aim of his effort and activity. He had toiled as much before his marriage, before he knew anything of his wife. He neither spoke to her of his love nor asked for love from her; and he met her questions on the subject with a joke or an epigram. Soon after his acquaintance with her he had begun to talk of marriage, as though giving her to conclude that love was an understood thing in it, and that it was useless to talk much about it.
He had an aversion to scenes of all kinds—that was well enough; but he did not like genuine demonstrations of feeling, and did not believe in the need of them in others. Meanwhile he might by a single glance, a single word, have created in her a deep passion for him ; but he did not say the word, he did not care to. The fact did not even flatter his vanity.
She tried to arouse his jealousy, thinking that then love must find expression. Nothing came of it. Directly he noticed that she preferred the society of a certain young man, he hastened to invite him to the house and show him friendliness, was untiring in his praise of his character, and was not afraid of leaving him alone with his wife.
Lizaveta Alexandrovna sometimes deceived herself, imagining that perhaps Piotr Ivanitch was acting from policy; might not his secret method consist in maintaining perpetual doubt in her, and in that way maintaining love itself? But at her husband's first mention of love she was immediately disillusioned.
If he had been coarse, unpolished, narrow, slow-witted, one of those husbands whose name is legion, whom it is so excusable, so necessary, so consoling to deceive, for their own sakes even, who seem to have been created for their wives, to look round them and fall in love with their diametrical opposites—then it would have been a different matter; she would very likely have behaved as the majority of wives do behave in like case. But Piotr Ivanitch was a man of an intelligence and tact not often to be met with. He was subtle, quickwitted, skilful. He understood all the agitations of the heart and troubles of the soul, but he under-
A COMMON STORY 147
stood them—and nothing more. A complete index to the affairs of the heart was in his head, but not in his heart. In his reasoning on this subject it was clear that he was talking as of something he had heard and learnt by rote, but had not felt at all.
Lizaveta Alexandrovna felt his intellectual superiority to all surrounding him and was tortured by it. " If only he were not so clever," she thought, "I should have been saved."
[e was bent on positive aims, that was clear, and he expected that his wife should not lead a life of dreams.
" But, my God!" thought Lizaveta, " if he only married to have a lady at the head of his 4iouse, to give his bachelor [uarters the fulness and dignity of a family home, so as to f have greater weight in society ! A housekeeper—a wife— in the most prosaic sense of these words ! But with all his intelligence, didn't he understand that love is present even ^n the positive aims of a woman ? . . . . Oh, let me pay for pSSsion in agony, let me endure every suffering that is inseparable from love, if only I may live a complete life, if only I may feel that I am living and not stagnating."
She looked at her luxurious furniture and all the toys and costly knicknacks of her boudoir, and all this luxury seemed to her a cold mockery of real happiness. She had to look on at two monstrous extremes—in her husband and her nephew. One enthusiastic to folly—the other frozen to / hardness.
" How little both of them—and the greater part of men— understand real feeling, and how well I understand it!" she thought. " And what is the good of it ? why ! oh, if only n
She hid her eyes and stayed so some instants, then uncovered them, looked round, sighed heavily and at once resumed her ordinary calm demeanour. Unhappy woman ! No one knew of it, no one saw it.
One day Alexandr came to his aunt in a paroxysm of ill-humour with the whole human species. Lizaveta Alexandrovna began to inquire the cause.
"You want to know," he began in a subdued, rapt tone, "' what is now my frenzied ill ?'" I will tell you; you know I had a friend whom I had not seen for some years, but who had always kept a niche in my heart When I was first here, uncle forced me to write a queer letter to him, in
*
which were inserted his favourite maxims and ways of thinking: but I tore it up and sent another, as it happened, so there was no lessening of our friendship from that After that letter our correspondence dropped, and I lost sight of my friend. What has happened now? Three days ago, walking along the Nevsky Prospect, I suddenly saw him. I was on fire in a minute, and tears were starting into my eyes. I stretched out my hands to him, but could not utter a word for joy; I was quite faint. He took one hand and shook it. " How are you, Adouev!" he said in a voice as though we had parted only the day before. " Have you been here long ? " He was surprised that we had not met before, lightly inquired what I was doing? what office I was in, thought it needful to inform me at length that he had a splendid position and liked his work, his superiors, and his companions, and everybody, and his fate; then said he had no time to spare, that he was hurrying to a dinner party he had been invited to. Do you hear, ma tante ? meeting a friend after this long separation, he could not put off a dinnerparty."
"But perhaps they would have been waiting for him," observed his aunt; " propriety does not permit "
"Propriety against friendship! and you too, ma tante/ but there is something more I had better tell you. He pressed his address into my hand, said that he would expect me the evening of the next day, and was gone. ' So be it then,' I thought, 'I will go.' I arrived. There were some ten people there, friends of his. He held out his hand to me in a more friendly way than the day before, it's true, but then, without uttering a word, at once proposed that we should sit down to cards. I said that I did not play, and took a seat alone on the sofa, expecting that he would throw down his cards and come to me. 'Don't you play?' said he in surprise—' what will you do then ?' A nice question ! So I waited an hour, two hours; he did not come to me; I reached the limit of my patience. He offered me first a cigar, then a pipe, regretted that I did not play, that I was bored, tried to occupy me—how, do you imagine?—by constantly turning to me and describing every successful and unsuccessful card he played. At last I could bear it no longer; I went up to him and asked, did he intend to devote any time to me that evening ? And my heart seemed boiling
<
V
A COMMON STORY 149
within me, my voice shook. It seemed to surprise him. He looked at me curiously. " Very well," he said, " let us finish the rubber." As this was all he said to me, I seized my hat and was about to go, but he noticed it and stopped me. "The rubber is just over," he said, "we will have supper directly." At last they finished the game. He took a seat near me and yawned; that was how our friendly conversation began. "You wanted to say something to me ? " he inquired. This was said in such a matter-of-fact, unfeeling voice that I simply gazed at him with a mournful smile. Then he suddenly seemed to thaw and began to ply me with questions : * What's the matter with you ? isn't there something you are in want of ? Couldn't I be of use to you in your official work ?'—and so on. I shook my head, and told him that I did not want to talk to him of my work but of what was nearer to my heart. Then I began to tell him of my love, of my sufferings, of the emptiness of my heart. I began to be carried away and thought that the story of my sufferings was breaking through the crust of ice, that his eyes were not quite unbedewed by tears, when suddenly he burst out laughing ! I looked at him, he had a handkerchief in his hands; he had been trying to control himself all the time I was talking, at last he could hold out no longer. I stopped in dismay.
"Enough, enough," he said, "better drink some vodka and we will have supper. Boy ! some vodka. Come, come, ha, ha, ha !—there's some capital roast—ha, ha, ha !—roast beef."
He was going to take me by the hand, but I tore myself away and fled from the monster.
"There, that's what men are like, ma tante" said Alexandr in conclusion, then, with a wave of the hand, he was gone.
Lizaveta Alexandrovna felt pity for Alexandr.
" Piotr Ivanitch !" she said to him affectionately one day, " I have a request to make of you ? "
" What is it ? "
" Guess."
" Tell me; you know your requests are never refused. I daresay it's about a country villa; well, it's still rather early."
"No I" said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. "Alexandr was with me the day before yesterday."
"Ah, I feel there's something wrong!" interposed Piotr Ivanitch, "well?"
Then Lizaveta Alexandrovna told him all she had heard from her nephew. Piotr Ivanitch gave a vigorous shrug.
" What do you want me to do in the matter ? you see what a fellow he is !"
" You show him sympathy; ask him what is the state of his heart."
"You don't want me to weep with him? "
" It would do no harm."
" Ugh, that Alexandr; he is a burden !" said Piotr Ivanitch.
"A terrible burden; once a month to receive a letter from an old lady and to throw it—without reading it—under the table, or to talk a little to your nephew? Why, it keeps you from your whist! You men, you men h If you have a good dinner, Lafitte with a gold label and cards, it's everything; and no trouble about any one! If you have a chance of boasting and showing off as well, then you are happy!"
"Just what flirtation is for you," observed Piotr Ivanitch; " every one to his taste, my dear! What more would you have?"
" Why, some heart! of that there is never anything. It's vexing and sad to see you," said Lizaveta under her breath.
" Come, come, don't be angry; I will do all you tell me, only teach me how ! " said Piotr Ivanitch.
Explain to him in a kind way what can be asked and expected of friends in these days; tell him that his friend is not so much to blame as he imagines. But can I teach you? You are so clever, and so good at dissembling," added Lizaveta Alexandrovna.
Piotr Ivanitch knitted his brows a little at the last word.
" Have you been going in for * sincere outbursts,' pray ? " he said with irritation, " and now you want to drag me into it!"
" It's for the last time, however," said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. " I hope that after this he will be pacified."
Piotr Ivanitch shook his head incredulously.
" There's some one rang the bell, isn't it he ? What am I
t )
A COMMON STORY 151
to do ? tell me again : give him a lecture—what else; money ? "
" A lecture indeed! why, you'll make it worse. I asked you to talk a little of friendship, of affection, but more kindly, more sympathetically."
Alexandr made his bow in silence and in silence ate a hearty dinner, and between the courses rolled up little pellets of bread and looked from under his eyebrows at the bottles and decanters. After dinner he was going to take his hat again.
" Where are you off to ? " said Piotr Ivanitch, " sit with us a little."
Alexandr obeyed in silence. Piotr Ivanitch thought how he could approach the subject in a gentle and discreet manner, and at once asked, speaking briskly: " I have heard, Alexandr, that your friend has treated you badly in some way ? "
At these unexpected words Alexandr drew back his head, as though he had been wounded, and bent a gaze full of reproach upon his aunt. She too had not anticipated such a crude opening of the subject, and at first let her head droop over her work, then looked also with reproach at her husband; bat he was under the combined influence of digestion and drowsiness, and did not perceive the import of these looks.
Alexandr answered his question by a scarcely audible sigh.
" Seriously," continued Piotr Ivanitch, " what treachery! what a friend ! he had not seen him for five years, and when they met he did not smother his friend with embraces, but invited him in the evening, tried to make him play cards, and to give him supper. And then—treacherous creature !—noticed the sulky looks on his friend's face, and set to questioning him about his affairs, his circumstances, his needs—what base curiosity ! no sincere outpourings! awful! awful! Please let me see this monster, bring him on Friday to dine ! But what stakes does he play for?"
" I don't know," said Alexandr angrily. " You may laugh,
uncle; you are right; I alone am to blame. To believe
in men—to seek sympathy—in whom ? to cast pearls—
I before whom ? All around me is baseness, cowardice,
* pettiness, and I still kept my youthful faith in goodness,
Piotr Ivanitch was tranquilly beginning to nod.
" Piotr Ivanitch!" said Lizaveta Alexandrovna sotte voce, taking his hand, " you are asleep ? "
" Me asleep! " said Piotr Ivanitch, rousing himself. " I heard everything—' virtue, constancy ;' when did I fall asleep ? "
" Don't disturb my uncle, ma tante? remarked Alexandr; "he won't go to sleep, then his digestion will be deranged, and man is lord of creation, no doubt, but he is also the slave of his stomach. 1 '
At this he tried to smile bitterly, but only succeeded in smiling sourly.
" Tell me what you wanted from your friend ? sacrifices of some sort, I suppose; did you want him to climb over a wall or jump out of a window ? How do you understand friendship ? " asked Piotr Ivanitch.
" Now I ask no sacrifices—don't alarm yourself. Thanks to others, I have been brought down to a pitiful comprehension of friendship as well as of grief," said Alexandr. " I feel in myself the power of loving and I am proud of it. My unhappiness only results from my not having met a creature capable of such love and endowed with the power of loving."
" Power of loving ! " repeated Piotr Ivanitch a it's just as if you said the power of weakness."
" It's not your way, Piotr Ivanitch" observed Lizaveta Alexandrovna; " you are not willing to believe in the existence of such love even in others."
" And you, is it possible you believe in it ?" demanded Piotr Ivanitch, going up to her; " but no ! you are joking! Do men love in that sentimental way ? "
Lizaveta Alexandrovna paused in her work. "How then?" she asked in an undertone, taking his hand and drawing him to her.
Piotr Ivanitch quietly loosened his hand from hers and pointed at Alexandr, who was standing at the window with his back to them and then began again his interrupted pacing of the room.
" How !" he said, " as though you had not heard how men love!"
" Oh, they love!
" she repeated gloomily, and slowly took up her work again. .
The silence lasted a quarter of an hour. Piotr Ivanitch was the first to break it.
" You are rather bitter against men. Is it your love for that—what's-her-name ? has made you so ? "
" Oh! I had really forgotten about that foolishness."
" You see, it's just as I told you. What has made you so averse to men in general ? "
" What indeed! Their baseness, their pettiness of soul."
" But what concern is it of yours ? Do you want to correct mankind, pray ? "
"What concern of mine? Am not I myself bespattered by the filth in which mankind is wallowing ? You know what has been my experience— after all that, how can I help hating, despising my fellow-creatures !"
"What has been your experience ?"
" Infidelity in love, hard, cold neglect in friendship."
" You've an attack of the spleen ! You ought to busy yourself with work," said Piotr Ivanitch, " then you won't abuse mankind for nothing. What's wrong with the people j you know ? they're all decent people."
Alexandr made a gesture of supreme disgust. /^r *Jf£Well, but what of yourself?" asked Piotr Ivanitch.
"I have done no harm to my fellow-men!" Alexandr retorted with dignity, " I have a loving heart; I opened my eyes wide to people, but how have they treated me?"
"What next! how ridiculously he talks!" observed Piotr Ivanitch turning to his wife.
" Everything is ridiculous to you !" she replied.
" And I myself did not ask from people," continued Alexandr, " either heroic achievements, or greatness of soul, or self-sacrifice. I only asked what was my due by every right."
"So you are all right? You have come out of things quite unspotted. Allow me to show it in a fresh light."
Lizaveta Alexandrovna noticed that her husband was beginning to speak in a stern voice and she trembled.
" Piotr Ivanitch," she whispered, " do stop."
" No, let him hear the truth. I will finish in a minute. Kindly tell me, Alexandr, when you stigmatised all your friends as cold and neglectful, did you feel something uneasy in your heart like a prick of conscience ? "
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