After dinner I go into my study and light my only pipe of the day – a relic of my filthy old habit of puffing smoke from dawn to dusk. While I am smoking my wife comes in and sits down for a chat. Just as in the morning I know in advance what we are going to talk about.
‘You and I must have a serious talk, Nikolay,’ she begins. ‘It’s about Liza. Why do you turn a blind eye?’
‘To what?’
‘You pretend not to notice a thing – and that’s bad. You mustn’t be so indifferent. Gnekker is serious about Liza. What do you say to that?’
‘I really can’t say if he’s a bad person as I don’t know him well enough. But I’ve told you a thousand times that I don’t like him.’
‘But this is impossible, impossible…’
She gets up and walks around excitedly.
‘You can’t possibly take such an attitude to a serious step like this!’ she says. ‘When our daughter’s happiness is at stake you must put aside all personal considerations. I know you don’t like him. Very well… But if we refuse him now and break it off, what guarantee is there that Liza won’t bear a grudge against us for the rest of her life? Goodness knows, eligible bachelors are few and far between these days and it’s quite likely someone else will never turn up. He’s deeply in love with Liza and she’s fond of him. Of course, he doesn’t have a proper job, but that can’t be helped. God willing, he’ll find something in time. He’s from a good family and he’s well off.’
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘He told us himself. His father has a big house in Kharkov and an estate nearby. In short, Nikolay, you’ll definitely have to go to Kharkov.’
‘Why?’
‘You can make inquiries there… You know some professors there and they’ll help you. I’d go myself but I’m a woman, I can’t…’
‘I’m not going to Kharkov,’ I say sullenly.
My wife takes fright and a look of intense pain appears on her face.
‘For God’s sake, Nikolay,’ she begs, in between sobs. ‘For God’s sake, take this burden away! I’m going through hell!’
I find it painful to look at her.
‘Very well, Varya,’ I say tenderly. ‘All right, I’ll go to Kharkov if you want me to and I’ll do everything you want.’
She presses her handkerchief to her eyes and goes to her room to cry. I am left on my own.
A little later a lamp is brought in. The armchair and lampshade cast those familiar shadows of which I have long grown tired on the walls and floor, and when I look at them I feel night has already come and with it my damned insomnia. I lie on my bed, then I get up again, walk up and down – and then I lie down again. Usually after dinner, as evening approaches, my nervous excitement reaches fever pitch. For no reason I start crying and bury my head under the pillow. At these moments I’m afraid that someone might come in, or that I might suddenly die. I’m ashamed of my tears and altogether I feel something insufferable is going on inside me. I feel that I can’t bear to look at my lamp, my books, the shadows on the floor any more, I can’t bear to hear those voices in the drawing-room. Some invisible, incomprehensible force is roughly driving me out of the house. I leap up, hurriedly dress and, taking every precaution not to be seen by anyone in the house, I slip out into the street. Where can I go?
The answer to this question has long been in my mind – to Katya.
III
As usual she is lying on the ottoman or on a couch reading. When she sees me she idly raises her head, sits up and stretches out her hand to me.
‘You’re always lying down,’ I say after a short pause and a rest. ‘It’s not good for you. You should find something to do!’
‘What?’
‘I said you should find something to do.’
‘What? A woman can only be a menial worker or an actress.’
‘All right, if you don’t want to do menial work then go on the stage.’
She says nothing.
‘You ought to get married,’ I say, half-joking.
‘There’s no one I want to marry. Besides, there’s no point.’
‘But you can’t go on like this.’
‘Without a husband? What does it matter! I could have as many men as I liked if I wanted to.’
‘That’s not nice, Katya!’
‘What’s not nice?’
‘Well, what you just said.’
Noting that I am upset and eager to erase the bad impression Katya says, ‘Let’s go. This way – there!’
She leads me into a small, very cosy room and points at a writing desk.
‘There… I’ve arranged it all for you,’ she tells me. ‘You can work here. You can come every day and bring your work with you. They only interrupt you at home. Will you do this? Yes?’
Not wishing to upset her with a refusal I reply that I will come and work at her place, that I like the room very much. Then we both sit down in the cosy little room and start talking.
Instead of giving me pleasure as they did before, warmth, comfort and agreeable company only arouse a strong desire to complain and grumble. Somehow I feel better after a little grousing and complaining.
‘Things are bad, my dear!’ I begin with a sigh. ‘Very bad.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’ll explain, my dear. The finest, most sacred right of kings is the right to pardon and I’ve always felt like a king, since I’ve made unlimited use of this right. I’ve never judged, I’ve made allowances, I’ve readily forgiven everyone right and left. Where others have protested or waxed indignant, I’ve merely advised and persuaded. All my life I’ve been concerned solely with making my company tolerable for my family, my students, my colleagues and my servants. And I know that this attitude to people has had a civilizing influence on all those around me. But no longer am I a king. Something is happening to me that is fit only for a slave. Day and night evil thoughts haunt me and feelings I had never known before – of hatred, contempt, indignation, exasperation and dread – have come to dwell in my heart. I’ve become excessively strict, demanding, irritable, rude, suspicious. What was once a pretext for an extra joke or hearty laughter utterly depresses me now. And my sense of logic has also altered. Once I despised only money, but now I feel malicious – not towards money, but towards the rich, as if they were to blame. Where I used to hate violence and tyranny I now hate the perpetrators of violence, as if they alone were to blame and not all of us who are incapable of educating each other. What does it all mean? If these new thoughts and feelings are the result of a change in my convictions how did the change come about? Has the world become worse? Have I become better? Or was I blind before and indifferent? But if this change originated from a general decline in physical and intellectual powers – after all, I’m a sick person and I’m losing weight every day – then my position is indeed pathetic: it can only mean that my new thoughts are morbid, abnormal, that I should be ashamed of them and make light of them…’
‘Illness has nothing to do with it,’ interrupts Katya. ‘It’s simply that your eyes have been opened, that’s all. You’ve seen what for some reason you closed your eyes to before. In my opinion the most important thing is to make a clean break with your family and get away from them.’
‘You’re talking nonsense.’
‘But you don’t love them any more, so why act against your conscience. Call that a family! They’re nobodies! If they were to drop dead today no one would miss them tomorrow.’
Katya despises my wife and daughter as much as they loathe her. These days it’s practically impossible to speak of people’s rights to despise each other. But if one were to accept Katya’s point of view and admit this right exists, then obviously she’s just as entitled to despise my wife and Liza as they are to detest her.
‘Nobodies!’ she repeats. ‘Have you had any lunch today? How come they didn’t forget to invite you to the table? How is it that they are still aware you exist?’
‘Katya,’ I say sternly, ‘please b
e quiet, I beg you.’
‘Do you honestly think I enjoy talking about them? I wish I’d never set eyes on them. Now, listen to me, my dear: give everything up and go away. Go abroad. And the sooner the better.’
‘Rubbish! What about the university?’
‘And leave the university too. What do you need it for? It just doesn’t make sense. You’ve been lecturing for thirty years now and where are your pupils? Are there many famous scientists among them? Count them, go on! To breed doctors who exploit ignorance and earn their hundreds of thousands of roubles – you don’t need to be a talented or good man for that! You’re redundant!’
‘Good God, how harsh you are!’ I exclaim, horrified. ‘How harsh! Now be quiet, or I’ll go! I’ve no answer to these sharp words of yours!’
The maid enters to announce that tea is ready. Over the samovar we both change the subject, thank God. After my good old grumble I want to indulge another weakness of old age – reminiscing. I tell Katya about my past and to my own great surprise I go into details I never suspected I would remember so well. And she shows emotion and pride as she listens with bated breath. I’m particularly fond of telling her about my student days at a theological college when I dreamed of going on to university.
‘I often used to stroll in the college gardens,’ I tell her. ‘From some distant tavern a song and an accordion’s grating would be borne to me on the breeze, or a troika with bells ringing would tear past the college fence – all this would suffice to fill not only my heart, but my stomach, legs and arms with a sudden feeling of happiness. As I listened to the accordion or those bells dying away I would imagine myself a doctor and I’d paint pictures in my mind, each better than the last. And as you can see, now my dreams have come true. I’ve received more than I ever dared dream of. For thirty years I’ve been a much-loved professor, I’ve had excellent colleagues, enjoyed fame and distinction. I’ve loved – I married for passionate love – I’ve had children. In brief, as I look back on it, my whole life seems a beautiful, skilfully fashioned composition. All that remains is not to spoil the finale and for that I must die like a man. If death really is a threat, then I must meet it in a manner worthy of a teacher, scholar and citizen of a Christian country: courageously and with equanimity. I’m spoiling the finale, though. It’s as if I’m drowning and I’m running to you begging for help, but all you say is: “Then go and drown – that’s exactly what you should do.” ’
But then a bell rings in the hall. Katya and I recognize the sound. ‘That must be Mikhail Fyodorovich,’ we say.
And in fact a minute later my colleague, the literary historian Mikhail Fyodorovich, enters, a tall, well-built, clean-shaven man of fifty, with thick grey hair and black eyebrows. He is a good fellow and first-class colleague. He hails from a fairly fortunate, ancient, talented and noble family which has played a prominent part in the history of our country’s literature and enlightenment. As for him, he’s intelligent, gifted, highly educated, but not without certain oddities. To some extent we are all strange and a little weird, but in his idiosyncrasies there is something truly exceptional and fraught with danger for his friends. I know quite a few of the latter for whom his numerous virtues are completely obscured by these quirks of his.
On entering he slowly removes his gloves.
‘Good evening!’ he says in his velvety bass. ‘Having tea? That’s most welcome. It’s hellishly cold.’
Then he sits down at the table, takes himself a glass and immediately starts talking. What is most distinctive about the way he talks is that constantly jocular tone, a kind of mixture of philosophizing and buffoonery – as with Shakespeare’s gravediggers. He’s always talking about serious matters, but he never talks seriously. His judgements are always sharp and provocative, but thanks to his soft, even, jocular tone, the sharp words don’t jar on the ear and you soon get used to them. Every evening he brings with him half a dozen stories of university life and he usually begins with them when he sits down at the table.
‘Oh Lord!’ he sighs, twitching his black eyebrows mockingly. ‘There’s such clowns in this world!’
‘What do you mean?’ asks Katya.
‘Well, when I came out of the lecture-room this morning whom should I meet on the stairs but that silly old fool NN—. There he comes with that horsey chin sticking out as usual and looking for someone to hear him complain about his migraine, his wife and the students who don’t want to go to his lectures. Oh, I think to myself, he’s spotted me, I’m finished, all is lost…’
And more in the same vein. Or he fires off like this: ‘Yesterday I was at our dear So-and-So’s public lecture. Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I’m amazed that our alma mater has the nerve to put such imbeciles and certified nitwits as him on public display. Why, he’s an international fool! You won’t find a fool to equal him in the whole of Europe in a month of Sundays! Just imagine – when he lectures he lisps, just as if he’s sucking boiled sweets… He gets in such a flap that he can hardly decipher his own handwriting, his piffling little thoughts hobble along with the speed of an abbot on a bicycle. But worst of all, you can’t make head or tail of what he wants to say. The boredom’s deathly – even the flies drop dead! The only other kind of boredom you can compare with it is what we get at the annual ceremony in the assembly hall, on degree day, when the traditional oration is read – damn and blast it!’
Immediately there is an abrupt transition.
‘About ten years ago, as Nikolay Stepanovich will recall, it was my turn to deliver the oration. It was hot and stuffy, my uniform was pinching me under the arms – it was sheer hell! I read for half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half, two hours… “Well, I think, praise the Lord there’s only ten pages left!” And there were four pages at the end that could easily be skipped and I was counting on leaving them out. “So,” I think, “only six pages to go!” But then – just imagine! – I glance in front of me and lo and behold there’s some beribboned general sitting with a bishop in the front row. The poor devils were bored out of their minds and kept goggling their eyes to stay awake. But for all that they were still trying to look as if they were listening, pretending that they understood and liked my oration. “Well,” I think, “if you like it so much you can damned well have it! That’ll teach you!” So I soldier on and read all four pages.’
As you usually find with sarcastic people, only his eyes and eyebrows smile when he speaks. At such moments there is neither hatred nor malice in them, but a great deal of wit and that peculiar foxy cunning which you only find with very observant people. To continue with his eyes, I noticed another peculiarity about them. Whenever he takes a glass from Katya or listens to what she says, or glances after her when she leaves the room for a short while to fetch something, I notice something gentle, beseeching, pure in their expression…
The maid takes the samovar away and puts on the table a large piece of cheese, some fruit and a bottle of Crimean champagne – a rather poor wine to which Katya had become partial when she lived in the Crimea. Mikhail Fyodorovich takes two packs of cards from the shelf and starts playing patience. But despite his claim that some varieties of patience call for nimbleness of thought and concentration, he still doesn’t stop distracting himself with his talk as he plays. Katya closely follows the cards, helping him more by gesture than by words. She drinks no more than two glasses the whole evening. I drink a quarter of a glass and the rest of the bottle falls to the lot of Mikhail Fyodorovich who can knock back any amount without ever getting drunk.
Over patience we settle all kinds of questions, mainly on the highest level and our dearest love – science – catches it more than anything else.
‘Science, thank God, has had its day,’ solemnly proclaims Mikhail Fyodorovich. ‘Its goose is cooked! Oh yes, sir! Mankind is already feeling the need to replace it with something else. Science arose out of superstition, was nourished by superstition and now constitutes the very essence of superstition, like those obsolete grandmamas – alchemy, m
etaphysics and philosophy. And in actual fact, what has science given mankind? After all, the difference between learned Europeans and Chinamen who have no science is trivial, purely superficial. Chinamen have never had any science – and what have they lost as a result?’
‘Flies don’t have science either,’ I say, ‘but what does that prove?’
‘There’s no need to get cross, Nikolay. I’m only saying this here, between ourselves. I’m more tactful than you think and I’d never talk like this in public. God forbid! The superstition that the arts and sciences are superior to agriculture, commerce and handicrafts is alive and kicking among the masses. Our part of society thrives on superstition and God forbid that you or I should destroy it!’
During patience the younger generation catches it as well.
‘Nowadays our students have degenerated,’ sighs Mikhail Fyodorovich. ‘I don’t mean ideals and all that stuff, but if only they would work and think intelligently! Oh yes it’s all a question of “How sadly I behold our generation”.’16
‘Yes, they’ve degenerated terribly,’ Katya agrees. ‘Tell me, have you had a single outstanding student over the past five or ten years?’
‘I can’t speak for the other professors, but I don’t remember having had any.’
‘I’ve seen many students in my lifetime and those young scholars of yours, many actors… and what do you think? Not once have I had the honour of meeting a single interesting person, let alone geniuses and high flyers. They’re all so dull, mediocre, so puffed up with pretension…’
All this talk of degeneracy invariably affects me as if I’d accidentally overheard an unpleasant conversation about my daughter. I find it offensive that these accusations are unfounded and based on such hackneyed clichés, such bugbears as degeneracy, lack of ideals, or harking back to the good old days. Every accusation, even if it is made in the company of ladies, should be formulated with the greatest possible precision, otherwise it is not an accusation at all, but vain backbiting, unworthy of decent men.
The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91 Page 27