An old woman carrying a sack over her shoulder came along the path. It occurred to the Princess that it would be good to stop her and say something friendly and sincere, to help her on her way.… But the old woman did not once turn her head, and she vanished round the corner.
Not long afterward a tall man with a gray beard and a straw hat came along the avenue. As he passed the Princess, he took off his hat and bowed, and from the large bald spot on his head and the sharp, crooked nose the Princess recognized him as the doctor, Mikhail Ivanovich, who had been in her service five years before on her estate at Dubovki. Someone had told her, she remembered, that the doctor’s wife had died the previous year, and she wanted to tender her sympathy and comfort him.
“I am sure you don’t recognize me, Doctor,” the Princess said with her inviting smile.
“Of course I recognize you, Princess,” the doctor replied, and once again he took off his hat.
“Oh, thank you, I was so afraid you had forgotten your Princess. People only remember their enemies, and forget their friends. Have you come here to pray?”
“I come here every Saturday night, because it is my duty. I’m the doctor here.”
“Well, how are you?” the Princess asked, sighing. “I heard about the death of your wife. How terrible it must have been for you!”
“Yes, Princess, it was a terrible misfortune for me.”
“What can we do? We must bear our misfortunes humbly. Not a hair falls from a man’s head but by the will of eternal Providence.”
“True, Princess.”
To the Princess’s sweet and friendly smiles and sighs the doctor answered coldly and dryly: “True, Princess.” And the expression of his face was cold and dry.
“What else can I say to him?” the Princess wondered.
“It is such a long time since we met,” she went on. “Five years! Think of all the water which has flown under the bridges in that time! So many changes have taken place, it is terrible to think about them! You know I am married now?… I’m not a countess any more, but a princess. And I have separated from my husband.”
“Yes, I heard about it.”
“God has sent me many trials. I am sure you have heard that I am almost ruined. My Dubovki, Kiryakovo, and Sofino estates have been sold to pay the debts of my miserable husband. There is only Baronovo and Mikhaltsevo left. It’s a terrible thing to look back over the past! So much has changed, so many misfortunes, and so many mistakes!”
“Yes, Princess, many mistakes.”
The Princess was a little put out. She knew she had made mistakes, but they were of such an intimate character that she thought she alone could think about them, or speak about them. She could not resist asking: “What mistakes were you thinking about?”
“You mentioned them, and you know them,” the doctor said, and smiled. “Why should we talk about them?”
“Do tell me, Doctor. I should be so grateful to you. And please don’t stand on ceremony with me. I love hearing the truth.”
“I am not judging you, Princess.”
“Not judging me indeed! What a tone you have! Then you really must know something! Tell me!”
“If you want me to, then I shall have to. Only I regret I am not a man with a clever tongue, and people do not always understand me.”
The doctor thought for a moment, and said: “There were a great number of mistakes, but in my opinion the most important was the spirit … the spirit prevailing on all your estates. As you see, I don’t know how to express myself very well. Chiefly I mean the lack of love, the loathing of people in general which could be felt as a positive force on all of them. Your entire way of living was built upon that loathing. Loathing the human voices, the faces of people, the scruffs of their necks, the way they walked … in a word, loathing everything that went to make up the human condition. At all the doors and on the stairways stand well-fed, ill-mannered, lazy grooms in livery who refuse to allow ill-dressed people into the house. In the hallway there are chairs with high backs especially placed there so that whenever you give balls or entertain, the servants won’t dirty the tapestries on the walls with the back of their heads; and in all the rooms there are thick carpets so that no human footsteps can be heard; and everyone who visits you is invariably commanded to speak softly and as little as possible, and never to say anything which would produce the least unpleasantness on your mind or on your nerves. And in your private sitting room you don’t shake hands with people or ask them to sit down—just as you don’t shake hands with me or ask me to sit down.…”
“Oh, please do sit down, if you wish,” the Princess said, holding out her hands and smiling. “Tell me, why are you so angry about such utterly unimportant things?”
“Why should I be angry?” The doctor laughed, but his face reddened, and he removed his hat and waved it about as he went on hotly: “To tell you the truth, I have been waiting for a long time for the opportunity to say these things to you.… I wanted to tell you that you have the Napoleonic way of regarding mankind—men are just cannon fodder. At least Napoleon had some ideas. You—you have nothing except your loathing!”
“Do I have a loathing for people?” The Princess smiled, shrugging her shoulders in amazement. “Do I?”
“Yes, you do! You want facts? Very well! At Mikhaltsevo there are three former cooks of yours living on charity—they went blind in your kitchens from the heat of the stoves. All the health, strength, and beauty that pours from your tens of thousands of acres is given over by you and your parasites to your grooms and footmen and coachmen. All these two-legged animals are brought up to become flunkies, stuffers of food, vulgarians, men who have departed from ‘the image and likeness of God.’… They might have been young doctors, agricultural experts, teachers, intellectuals, but, God in heaven, you tear them away from honest work, and for the sake of a crust of bread you make them play in your puppet shows, and that’s enough to make any decent man ashamed. Men like that can’t remain in your service for three years without becoming hypocrites, slanderers, and flatterers.… Is that good? Your Polish overseers, those scoundrels and spies, with names like Kasimir and Gaëtan, prowl from morning to night over your tens of thousands of acres and to please you they try to skin every ox three times over! Excuse me if I speak at random, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t regard the simple folk on your estates as though they were living people. And even the princes, counts, and bishops who used to visit you—you never regarded them as anything more than decoration. They were not living people. But the most important thing—the one that revolts me most of all—is that you possessed a fortune of more than a million rubles, and you did nothing for the people—nothing at all!”
The Princess sat there with a look of amazement, shock, and fear. She did not know what to say or how to behave. No one had ever spoken to her in that tone of voice. The doctor’s unpleasantly angry voice, his fumbling and stuttering, came like a harsh grating sound on her ears and on her brain: until she felt that the gesticulating doctor was beating her around the head with his hat.
“It’s not true at all,” she answered softly in an imploring voice. “I’ve done a lot of good things for people, and you know it!”
“Stuff and nonsense!” the doctor shouted at her. “Can you possibly maintain that your philanthropic works were undertaken for a serious purpose—weren’t they just puppets being pulled on strings! They were nothing more than a farce from beginning to end! You were playing a game of loving your neighbor—such an obvious game that even children and stupid peasant women understood what you were doing! Take your—what do you call it?—rest home for homeless old women, of which I was appointed a kind of head doctor, and in which you played the role of honorary patroness. God have mercy on us, what a wonderful institution that was! You built a house with parquet flooring, and there was a weather vane on the roof, and a dozen old women were rounded up from the villages and made to sleep under blankets of some woolen stuff and sheets of Dutch linen, and given candy to e
at!”
The doctor laughed maliciously into his hat, and went on speaking rapidly, stammering out the words.
“What a game, eh? The lower-ranking officials in the rest home kept the sheets and blankets locked up, because they were afraid the old women would spoil them—’ Let the devil’s pepper-pots sleep on the floor!’ The old women didn’t dare sit on the beds, or put on their jackets, or walk on the smooth parquet floors. Everything was arranged for display purposes only, and everything was hidden away from the old women as though they were thieves; and so they had to be clothed and fed on the sly by charitable persons. Day and night these old women prayed God to deliver them from their prison as soon as possible, and they prayed to be delivered from the edifying discourses of the fat swine into whose care they had been entrusted by you. And what did the higher-ranking officials do? It was perfectly charming! Twice a week, during the evening, there would descend upon us about thirty-five thousand messengers announcing that the Princess—you—would pay us a visit on the following day. That meant that on the next day I had to abandon my patients, dress up, and go on parade! Very well! I arrive. The old women are drawn up in a row to await your arrival. They wear their new, clean clothes. Around them marches the old garrison rat—the inspector—smiling his sweet, fawning smile. The old women yawn and exchange glances, but they are afraid to grumble aloud. We wait. The junior director comes hurrying up. Half an hour later he is followed by the senior director, and after him comes the director-in-chief of the finance department, and then another, and then another.… An endless crowd of them comes galloping up. They all have mysterious solemn faces. We wait, we wait. We shift our weight from one leg to the other, we look at the clock—all this happens in the silence of the grave because we hate each other to the death. An hour passes, then another, and finally the carriage is seen in the distance, and … and …”
The doctor went off into peals of shrill laughter, and continued in a high-pitched voice: “Well, you descend from your carriage, and at that moment the old hags, having heard the word of command from the garrison rat, begin to sing: ‘The Glory of our Lord in Zion the tongue of man cannot convey …’ Not bad at all, eh?
The doctor chuckled in a deep voice and waved his hand about, as though indicating that he was so overcome with laughter that he could not utter another word. He laughed heavily, harshly, his teeth powerfully locked together—you find evilly disposed people laughing like that—and from his voice, his face, his glittering, rather impertinent eyes, it was evident that he had a profound contempt for the Princess, the old women, and the hostel itself. There was nothing in the least charming or amusing in those coarse, brutal descriptions of his, but he kept laughing with great joy and satisfaction.
“And the school?” he went on, breathing heavily because he was still laughing. “Do you remember how you wanted to teach the children of the peasants? You must have taught them very well, because the boys ran away so fast they had to be flogged and bribed to come back to you! Remember how you wanted to offer bottled milk to the breast-fed children whose mothers worked in the fields? You went about the village complaining because the children were not being placed at your disposal—the mothers were taking them to the fields. Then the village elder gave orders that the mothers should take turns leaving their babies with you—for your delectation. And what a wonderful thing that was! The women ran away from your charities like mice from a cat! Why? It was very simple! Not because our people were ignorant and ungrateful—that was the explanation you gave—but because in all your capricious behavior, if you’ll pardon the expression, there was never a kopeck’s worth of love or real kindness! There was only your desire to amuse yourself with living puppets, nothing more!… Someone who doesn’t know the difference between living people and lap dogs shouldn’t go in for works of charity. I assure you there’s a great difference between people and lap dogs!”
The Princess’s heart was beating wildly, and there was a roaring in her ears. She still had the feeling that the doctor was beating her around the head with his hat. The doctor was speaking in an ugly way, rapidly and fiercely, all the time stuttering and gesticulating far too frequently. All she knew was that a spiteful, ill-mannered, ill-bred, and ungrateful person was talking to her, but she could not understand what he wanted of her and what he was talking about.
“Go away!” she said in a tearful voice, raising her hands to protect her head from the doctor’s hat. “Go away!”
“And then there’s the way you treat your servants!” the doctor went on, surrendering to his indignation. “You don’t look at them as people! You treat them as though they were the lowest kind of rogues! For example, permit me to ask why you dismissed me. For ten years I served your father, and then I served you, always honestly, never taking a holiday or a leave of absence, and I was loved and respected for miles around, and then one fine day I am suddenly informed that my services are no longer required! Why? To this day I have never understood why. I am a doctor, a gentleman by birth, a graduate of Moscow University, the father of a family—that is, I am a paltry, insignificant creature, and so you can kick me in the teeth for no reason at all! Why do you stand on ceremony with me? It came to my knowledge that my wife, secretly, without asking my permission, approached you three times in order to intercede for me, and not once did you let her come near you! They tell me she wept in your hallway! To the day I die I shall never forgive her for that—never!”
The doctor grew silent and clenched his teeth, making an intense effort to think of something else to say—something very unpleasant and spiteful. Then he remembered something, and his cold, frowning face suddenly brightened.
“Take this attitude of yours toward the monastery,” he said eagerly. “You have never shown any mercy to anyone! The holier the place, the more chance there is of things getting hopelessly out of hand as a result of your charity and angelic meekness. Why do you come here? Excuse me for asking this, but what do you want from the monks? What is Hecuba to you, or you to Hecuba? It’s just another sport, another game, another sacrilege against human dignity, that’s all! You don’t believe in the God of the monks, you have your own God in your heart—a God who popped into your brain when you were attending spiritualistic séances. You have only a condescending attitude toward the ceremonies of the Church. You don’t go to mass or vespers. You sleep till midday.… Why do you come here?… You come with your own God into a monastery which is foreign to you, and you imagine the monastery regards it as a tremendous honor to have you here. Of course it does! Ask the monks what your visit costs them! You were graciously pleased to arrive here this evening, but two days ago a messenger on horseback arrived from your estate to spread the news of your coming. All day yesterday they were getting the hostel ready for you, and waiting upon your arrival. This morning the advance guard arrived in the shape of an impudent maidservant, who kept running around the courtyard making a rustling sound with her skirts, demanding answers to her questions, and issuing orders.… I can’t bear it any longer! All day today the monks have been on the lookout—there would be trouble if you were not met with the proper ceremony! You would complain to the archbishop: ‘Your Holiness, the monks don’t approve of me! I don’t know what I have done to harm them! It’s true I’m a great sinner, but I’m so unhappy!’ Already one monastery has suffered as a result of your visits. The archbishop is a busy, learned man, he doesn’t have a moment for himself, but you keep on sending to him to come to your rooms. No respect for an old man’s dignity! It wouldn’t be so awful if you had given large sums to the monastery, but all this time the monks have not received a hundred rubles from you!”
Whenever the Princess was troubled or offended or misunderstood, and whenever she did not know what to say or do, she usually gave way to tears. Now at last she hid her face in her hands and wept in a thin childish voice. The doctor suddenly fell silent and gazed at her. His face darkened and grew stern.
“Forgive me, Princess,” he said in a dull voice. “I gav
e way to malice and forgot myself. It wasn’t a good thing to do!”
With an embarrassed cough, forgetting to put on his hat, he walked quickly away from the Princess.
The stars were already twinkling in the sky. The moon must have risen on the other side of the monastery, for the sky was brilliantly clear, soft, and transparent. There were bats flitting noiselessly along the white monastery wall.
Slowly the clock struck three-quarters, probably a quarter to nine. The Princess got up and walked silently to the gate. She felt she had been deeply wronged, and she wept, and then it seemed to her that the trees and the stars and the bats were all pitying her, and she thought the musical chiming of the clock was an expression of sympathy for her. She wept and kept thinking how good it would be to spend her whole life in a monastery. On silent summer evenings she would wander alone along the alleyways, insulted, injured, misunderstood by people, and only God and the starry heavens would observe her tears of suffering. In the church the evening service was still going on. The Princess paused and listened to the singing. How perfect the sound of their singing in the dark and motionless air! How sweet to weep and suffer to the sound of their singing!
Forty Stories Page 17