Von Koren quickly finished his soup and handed the batman his bowl. ‘I saw through Layevsky the very first month we met,’ he went on, turning to the deacon. ‘We both came here at the same time. People of his sort love friendship, togetherness, unity and so on, because they always need partners for whist, for drinking and eating. What’s more, they’re great talkers and need an audience. We became friends – by that I mean he came over to my place every day and loafed around, interrupted my work and told me all about his mistress. At first he startled me by his extraordinary mendacity, which simply made me feel sick. As one friend to another, I told him off, asked him why he drank so much, why he lived beyond his means and ran up so many debts, why he neglected his work, why he read nothing, why he was so uncultured, why he was so ignorant – and his sole reply to all my questions was to smile bitterly and say, “I’m a failure, a Superfluous Man”, or “What do you want from us, old man, we’re just left-overs from the serf system?” or “We’re all going to pot”. Or he’d spin me a whole yarn about Onegin, Pechorin, Byron’s Cain, Bazarov,6 calling them “our fathers in the spirit and in the flesh”. You must understand that he’s not to blame if official parcels lie around unopened for weeks, or if he drinks and sees that others get drunk with him. Onegin, Pechorin, and Turgenev, who invented failures and the Superfluous Man – they’re to blame. The reason for his outrageous depravity and disgraceful carryings-on can’t be found in him at all, but somewhere outside, in space. What’s more – and this is a cunning stroke – he’s not alone in being dissipated, lying, and vile, but we too – we “men of the eighties”, we, “the lifeless, neurotic offspring of serfdom”, we “cripples of civilization”. The long and short of it is, we must realize that a man of Layevsky’s calibre is great, even in decline; that his debauchery, ignorance and filthy ways are a quite normal evolutionary phenomenon, sanctified by the laws of necessity, that the reasons for all this are elemental, of world-shattering importance, and that we must cringe before Layevsky, since he’s a doomed victim of the epoch, of trends of opinion, of heredity and all the rest of it. Whenever civil servants and their wives listened to him there would be sighs and gasps and for a long time I did not realize the kind of person I was dealing with – a cynic or a cunning rogue? People like him with a modicum of education, who appear to be intellectuals and with a lot to say about their own noble qualities, are dab hands at passing themselves off as highly complex characters.’
‘Be quiet!’ Samoylenko said, flaring up. ‘I won’t have you maligning the noblest of men in my presence!’
‘Don’t interrupt, Alexander,’ von Koren said icily. ‘I’ve nearly finished now. Layevsky is a fairly uncomplicated organism. This is his moral framework: slippers, bathing and coffee early in the morning, then slippers, exercise and conversation; at two – slippers, lunch and booze; bathing, tea and drinks at five, followed by whist and telling lies; supper and booze at ten; after midnight – sleep and la femme. His existence is bounded by this strict routine, like an egg by its shell. Whether he’s walking, losing his temper, writing or having a good time, in the end everything boils down to drink, cards, slippers and women. Women play a fateful, overwhelming role in his life. He’ll tell you he was already in love at the age of thirteen. When he was a first-year student, he lived with a woman who had a good influence on him and to whom he owes his musical education. In his second year he redeemed a prostitute from a brothel and raised her to his level – that’s to say, made her his mistress. She stayed with him for six months and then fled back to Madame, an escape that caused him no end of spiritual distress. Alas, he suffered so much he was compelled to leave university and live at home for two years without doing a thing. But it was for the best. At home he started an affair with a widow who advised him to drop law and take up modern languages. And that’s precisely what he did. The moment he finished the course he fell madly in love with this married woman he’s with now – what’s her name? – and had to run away with her to the Caucasus, presumably for the sake of his ideals… Any day now he’ll tire of her and fly back to St Petersburg – and that will be because of his ideals too.’
‘How do you know?’ growled Samoylenko, looking daggers at the zoologist. ‘Come on, better have something to eat.’
Boiled grey mullet à la polonaise was served. Samoylenko laid a whole fish on each of his guests’ plates, pouring the sauce himself. Two minutes passed in silence.
‘Women play an essential part in every man’s life,’ the deacon observed. ‘There’s no getting away from it.’
‘Yes, but how great? For each one of us a woman is mother, sister, wife, friend. But to Layevsky she’s everything – and at the same time she’s only someone to go to bed with. Women – I mean living with one – are his whole purpose in life, his whole happiness. If he’s cheerful, sad, bored, disenchanted it’s always because of a woman. If his life has turned sour, then a woman’s to blame. If a new life has brightly dawned, if new ideals have been unearthed, you only have to look for the woman. Only books or paintings featuring women satisfy him. According to him, the age we live in is rotten, worse than the forties and sixties, just because we cannot completely surrender ourselves to love’s ecstasy and passion. These sensualists must have some sort of tumour-like growth which, by exerting pressure on the brain, has taken complete control of their minds. Just watch Layevsky when he’s with people. You’ll see, if you raise some general topic – cells, or the instincts, for example – he’ll sit on one side, not listening or saying a word, lifeless and bored: none of it interests him, everything is trivial and second-rate. But just mention male and female, talk about female spiders devouring the male after mating, say, his face will light up, his eyes will burn with curiosity – in brief, he will come to life. However noble, elevated or unbiased his ideas may seem, they invariably centre around the same point of departure. You might be walking down the street with him and meet a she-ass, for example. He’ll ask, “Tell me what you get, please, if you mate a she-ass with a camel?” And as for his dreams! Has he told you about his dreams? They are superb! First he’ll dream he’s getting married to the moon, then that he’s been summoned to a police station and ordered to live with a guitar…’
The deacon broke into loud peals of laughter. Samoylenko frowned and angrily wrinkled his face to stop laughing, but he couldn’t control himself and burst out laughing.
‘And he never stops talking nonsense. Good Lord, the rubbish he talks!’
IV
The deacon was very easily amused – any little trifle was enough to send him into stitches and make him laugh until he dropped. It seemed he only liked company because people had their funny side and he could give them all comical nicknames. He called Samoylenko ‘Tarantula’, his orderly ‘the Drake’, and went into raptures when von Koren once called Layevsky and Nadezhda ‘macaques’. He would hungrily peer into faces, listen without blinking and one could see his eyes fill with laughter and his face grow tense as he waited for a chance to let himself go and roar with laughter.
‘He’s a dissipated, perverted type,’ the zoologist continued, while the deacon, expecting something funny, stared at him. ‘You’ll have to go a long way to find such a nobody. Physically, he’s flabby, feeble and senile, while intellectually he’s no different from any old merchant’s fat wife who does nothing but guzzle, drink, sleep on a feather bed and have sex with her coachman.’ Again the deacon burst out laughing. ‘Now don’t laugh, deacon,’ von Koren said; ‘that’s stupid, after all.’ Waiting until the deacon stopped, he went on, ‘If this nonentity weren’t so harmful and dangerous I wouldn’t give him another moment’s thought. His capacity for doing harm stems from his success with women, which means there’s the danger he might have offspring and in this way he could present the world with a dozen Layevskys, all as sickly and perverted as himself. Secondly, he’s highly contagious – I’ve already told you about the whist and the beer. Give him another year or two and he’ll have the whole Caucasian coastline at h
is feet. You know how much the masses, especially the middle strata, believe in things of the mind, in university education, refinement of manners and polished self-expression. Whatever abomination he may perpetrate, everyone believes there’s nothing at all wrong, that this is how it should be, since he’s a cultured, liberally minded man with a university education. And the fact that he’s a failure, a Superfluous Man, a neurotic, a victim of the times means that he’s allowed to do whatever he likes. He’s a nice young fellow, a good sort, so genuinely tolerant of human frailty. He’s obliging, easygoing, undemanding, not in the least high and mighty. One can have a nice little drink with him and swap dirty jokes, or have a chat about the latest gossip. The masses, who have always tended towards anthropomorphism in religion and morals, prefer those idols who have the same weaknesses as themselves. Judge for yourselves the wide field he has for spreading infection! What’s more, he’s not a bad actor, a clever impostor, there are no flies on him. Just take his little tricks and dodges, for example his attitude to civilization. He hasn’t a clue about it, yet you can hear him say, “Oh, how civilization has crippled us! Oh, how I envy savages, those children of nature, ignorant of civilization!” You must understand that, at one time, in the old days, he was devoted to civilization heart and soul. He was its servant, he knew its innermost secrets, but it exhausted, disillusioned and cheated him. Can’t you see that he’s a Faust, a second Tolstoy? And he shrugs off Schopenhauer7 and Spencer as schoolboys, gives them a paternal pat on the shoulder as if to say, “Well, Spencer, what have you got to say, old pal?” Of course, he’s never read Spencer, but how charming he seems when he tells us – with mild, casual irony – that his lady friend “has read her Spencer”. And people listen to him and no one wants to know that not only does this charlatan have no right to talk about Spencer in that tone, but that he isn’t even fit to kiss his feet! Only a highly selfish, vile, disgusting animal would ever go about undermining civilization, authority and other people’s gods, slinging mud at them with a playful wink, merely to justify and conceal its own impotence and moral bankruptcy.’
‘I don’t know what you expect of him, Kolya,’ Samoylenko said, eyeing the zoologist more guiltily than hatefully. ‘He’s like everyone else. Of course, he has his weaknesses, but he keeps abreast of current ideas, does his work and is useful to his country. Ten years ago there was an old shipping-agent here, a man of the greatest intellect. What he used to say was…’
‘Enough of that, enough!’ the zoologist interrupted. ‘You tell me he’s working for the government. But what has he done? Have things improved here, are the clerks any more conscientious, honest, courteous, since he arrived on the scene? On the contrary, with the authority of a cultured, university man he’s only sanctioned slackness. He’s punctual only on the twentieth of the month, when he gets paid, the rest of the time he shuffles around at home in his slippers and tries to give the impression he’s doing the Russian government a great favour by living in the Caucasus. No, Alexander, you shouldn’t stand up for him. You’re completely lacking in sincerity. If you were really so very fond of him and considered him your neighbour, then, before anything else, you wouldn’t be so blind to his weaknesses, you wouldn’t be so tolerant. Instead, you’d try to render him harmless, for his own good.’
‘Which means?’
‘Neutralizing him. Since he’s incorrigible, there’s only one way to do it…’ Von Koren ran his fingers along his neck. ‘Either by drowning him or…’ he added, ‘in the interests of humanity, in his own interest, such people should be exterminated. No doubt about it.’
‘What are you saying?’ Samoylenko muttered as he stood up and looked in amazement at the zoologist’s calm, cool face. ‘Deacon, what is he saying? Have you gone out of your mind?’
‘I wouldn’t insist on the death penalty,’ von Koren said. ‘If that’s been proven harmful, then think of something else. If Layevsky can’t be exterminated, then isolate him, strip him of his individuality, make him do community work.’
‘What are you saying?’ Samoylenko said, aghast. ‘With pepper, with pepper!’ he cried out in despair when he saw the deacon eating stuffed marrows without any. ‘You’re an extremely intelligent man, but what are you saying? Forcing our friend, such a proud, intelligent man, to do community work!’
‘But if he’s proud and tries to resist, then clap him in irons!’
Samoylenko was speechless and could only twiddle his fingers. The deacon peered into his stunned face, which really did look funny, and burst out laughing.
‘Let’s change the subject,’ the zoologist said. ‘Remember one thing, Alexander, primitive man was protected from men like Layevsky by the struggle for survival and natural selection. But nowadays, since civilization has significantly weakened this struggle and the process of natural selection too, the extermination of the weak and worthless has become our worry. Otherwise, if people like Layevsky were to multiply, civilization would perish and humanity would degenerate completely. We’d be the guilty ones.’
‘If we’re going to drown and hang people,’ Samoylenko said, ‘then to hell with your civilization, to hell with humanity! To hell with them! Now, let me tell you. You’re a deeply learned man, highly intelligent, the pride of your country. But the Germans have ruined you. Yes, the Germans, the Germans!’
Since leaving Dorpat,8 where he studied medicine, Samoylenko rarely saw any Germans and had not read one German book. But in his opinion the Germans were to blame for all the evil in politics and science. Even he could not say how he had arrived at this opinion, but he stuck firmly to it.
‘Yes, the Germans!’ he repeated. ‘Now come and have some tea.’
All three stood up, put their hats on and went out into the small garden, where they sat in the shade of pale maple, pear and chestnut trees. The zoologist and the deacon sat on a bench near a small table, while Samoylenko sank into a wicker armchair with a broad, sloping back. The orderly brought them tea, preserves and a bottle of syrup.
It was very hot, about ninety in the shade. The burning air had become listless, inert; a long cobweb stretching down to the ground from the chestnut hung limp and motionless.
The deacon took his guitar – it was always lying on the ground near the table – tuned it and began to sing in a soft, thin voice, ‘Oh, the young college boys were standing by the tavern…’, but immediately stopped, as it was so hot, wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up at the deep blue, blazing sky. Samoylenko dozed off; he felt weak, intoxicated by the heat, the silence and that sweet afternoon drowsiness which swiftly took control of his limbs. His arms drooped, his eyes grew small, his head nodded on his chest. He gave von Koren and the deacon a sickly, sentimental look and murmured, ‘The young generation… A great man of science and luminary of the church… You’ll see, that long-skirted propounder of sacred mysteries will probably end up as a Metropolitan… and we’ll all have to kiss his hand… Well, good luck to them.’
The sound of snoring soon followed. Von Koren and the deacon finished their tea and went out into the street.
‘Going to catch gobies in the harbour again?’ the zoologist asked.
‘No, it’s a bit too hot.’
‘Let’s go to my place. You can do up a parcel for me and copy something out. At the same time we can discuss what you are going to do. You must do some work, deacon, you can’t go on like this.’
‘What you say is fair and logical,’ the deacon said, ‘but my present circumstances do provide some excuse for my idleness. You know yourself that uncertainty as to one’s position significantly increases apathy. The Lord alone knows if I’m here temporarily or for the duration. Here I am living in uncertainty, while the deaconess is vegetating at her father’s and feeling lonely. I must confess this heat has fuddled my brains.’
‘Nonsense,’ the zoologist said. ‘You should be able to get used to this heat and being without the deaconess. You shouldn’t pamper yourself, take a firm grip.’
V
; In the morning Nadezhda went for a bathe, followed by Olga her cook with jug, copper basin, towels and a sponge. Out in the roads two strange ships (obviously foreign freighters) with dirty white funnels lay at anchor. Some men in white, with white shoes, were strolling up and down the quayside shouting out loud in French, and they were answered by people on the ships. A lively peal of bells came from the little town church.
‘It’s Sunday!’ Nadezhda remembered with great pleasure.
She was feeling quite well and her mood was gay and festive. She thought she looked very sweet in her new, loose dress of coarse tussore,9 in her large straw hat with its broad brim pressed down so tightly over her ears that her face seemed to be looking out of a box. She thought that there was only one young, pretty, cultured woman in the town – herself. Only she knew how to dress inexpensively, elegantly and tastefully. Her dress, for example, had cost only twenty-two roubles, yet it was so charming! She was the only woman who could please the men in a town that was full of them and so they just could not help envying Layevsky, whether they liked it or not.
The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91 Page 34