A common story

PREFACE

It is a disadvantage to Gontcharoff to be introduced for the first time to English readers who are already acquainted with the writings of his more thrilling and vivid successors, Tourgenieff, Dostoieffsky and Tolstoi. In the rapid development of the Russian realistic novel, Gontcharoff takes the second place in point of time. He was the first man to be roused by the example of Gogol, who wrote, shortly before he died in 1852 : "I have pursued life in its reality, not in dreams of the imagination, and I have thus reached Him who is the source of life." So could those later masters whom I have mentioned say, but Gontcharoff, who came a little before them, and was the first to take up the challenge thrown down by Gogol, if he had not penetrated to the sacred essence of things, could at least maintain that he had studied life in its reality. And this is why, although he is no poet, and cannot rend the heart like the young men who came after him, he is deserving of all recognition as an element in modern Russian literature.

Ivan Alexandrovitch Gontcharoff was born at Simbirsk, on the Volga, on the 18th of June,' 1813. His father, a rich merchant, died when the boy was three years old, and left him to the care of his mother and of his godfather, an aged retired officer of the navy. This old salt regaled the child with endless stories of adventures at sea, and awakened

in him a longing to sail about the world. At the village school to which he was sent, Ivan leamt French well from the wife of the pope of the parish, who had married a Frenchwoman. In 1825, he went to the Gymnasium in Moscow, where he was a diligent and blameless student. In 1831, he passed on to the University of Moscow, taking philology as his special subject. In 1835, ne went U P ^ rom the maternal house at Simbirsk, very much as Alexandr Fedoritch does in A Common Story^ to St. Petersburg, and received at the Ministry of Finance the post of Translator.

The earliest literary work undertaken by Gontcharoff, was exclusively in the line of translation. He published several Russian versions of well-known foreign novels. As a man of letters, he was absolutely the child of a romantic interest in the poet Pouschkine. He has recorded the emotion with which he gazed at the poet when he was pointed out to him for the first time in the church of the Nikitsky monastery in Moscow. Several years later, at the shop of the publisher Smirdine, Gontcharoff was presented to Pouschkine, and from this time forth he was in the habit of meeting him frequently, particularly in the studio of Maikoff, the painter. At that time, Pouschkine was the centre of all the hopes and the enthusiasm of the youth of Russia. The news of the assassination of the poet, in 1837, produced a sort of despair among those whose aspirations he had encouraged, and whose thoughts he had led. Gontcharoff has written: " Never shall I forget the news of the death of Pouschkine. I was then a small employ^ in a public department. I had leisure enough to write a little, to translate, to study the poets, and to dabble in aesthetics. Winckelmann was my great hobby, but Pouschkine domi-

nated everything. His works held the place of honour on the book-shelves of my modest room. Every line he had published had been meditated upon and felt by me. And suddenly they come and tell me that some one had killed him, that he exists no longer! At that moment I was seated at my desk in my office. I groped my way out into the corridor, and then, with my face to the wall, I covered my eyes with my hands and wept bitterly. I wept as a lad weeps who receives a message that his mother is dead. . . . Three days later a portrait of Fouschkine appeared in the shop-windows, bearing these words, ' The fire is extinguished on the altar. 9 It was immediately seized and destroyed by the police." The story recalls that of Tennyson's boyish emotion at the news of the death of Byron.

To the influence of Fouschkine, romantic and inflammatory, succeeded that of Gogol, with his new naturalistic ideas. The publication of the first part of Dead Sauls, in 1842, was an epoch for Gontcharoff, as for so many others. But he was slow in finding confidence to write. It was not until 1847 that he published, in the columns of a St. Petersburg newspaper, Obyknowenndia istorita, which is here for the first time presented to English readers as A Common Story. The novel enjoyed a very great success, and, in 1848, it was succeeded by a lighter and more comic sketch of bureau life in St. Petersburg, called Ivan Savite Poddja- \, brin. In 1852, the Russian Government suggested to Gontcharoff that he should accompany Admiral Pontiatine, in the capacity of private secretary, on a voyage around the world. To see foreign countries had always been the first desire of his heart, and he accepted the offer with enthusiasm. The special mission of the admiral was to proceed to Japan to negotiate a new treaty of commerce.

The tour, which occupied three years, closed with a land-journey across the steppes and mountains of Siberia.

The events of this memorable expedition were described by Gontcharoff in two large volumes, The Frigate " Pallada? 1856-57. To recover from the fatigue of his travels, Gon-tcharoff proceeded in 1857 to the baths of Marienbad, and there he wrote, in six weeks, the most famous of all his works, the novel called Oblomoff. It appeared in book-form in 1859. The rest of the novelist's life presented little that is of interest. In 1870, he published a third novel, ^Obryv ("The Abyss"). In 1873, ^ e was made chief director of the general post-office in St. Petersburg. He published a bibliographical and critical study of the radical and free-thinking critic, Belinsky, who died in 1847; his own Souvenirs, in 1879; a story, Mark the Nihilist, in 1886; and other minor contributions to literature. He died, in his seventy-ninth year, on the 28th of September, 1891.

At the time of the death of Gontcharoff, the distinguished critic, Michel Zagoulai'eff, published a study of his work, from which I extract the following passages:

" More than forty years ago, replying to the question what was the position of Gontcharoff in Russian literary life, our great critic, Belinsky, with his astonishing prescience of the future, declared, after the publication of Gontcha-rofFs first novel, A Common Story, that the author of that book would never be anything but a ' great artist in words/ on account of the complete absence in him of all inclination to deal enthusiastically with any of the social questions of the day." We all know how hard Gontcharoff strove later on to protest against this verdict in a sort of apologia for his writings, entitled Better Late than Never. After having

enriched the literature of Russia with three masterpieces, A Common Story, Oblomoff, and The Abyss, the great writer attempted to prove that these three beautiful books possessed more than mere literary merit, and that he too, like Tour-genieff, Dostoieffsky and Count Leo Tolstoi, had the right to be considered a commentator on the social life of his age. This interesting point has been the subject of much debate. There are those who are of opinion that the immortal type of Oblomoff is a synthesis of a certain condition of intelligent humanity as general as those of Don Quixote and of Hamlet. Others hold that in creating the hero of the most perfect of his three great novels, Gontcharoff has done no more than portray his own character, and that even in Russia this type is not so universal as Dobroliouboff supposed when he created the word ' Oblomovism' to characterise the lack of energy supposed to be inherent in our national character. . . .

" When A Common Story first appeared, we were passing through a period of transition, social as well as literary. The struggle between the new ideas and the ideas imposed on Russian society by the political rSgime which had been in force since 1825, was only beginning. A vague prescience of some change in the near future created among Russians an instinctive demand for something more than a mere platonic profession of beautiful sentiments. When Gontcharoff contrasted with the dreaming and sentimental hero of his first novel the man of action whom he has depicted in Peter Adouev, the public at once perceived the piquancy of the bitter irony of the uncle in face of the nonchalant and effeminate idealism of Alexandr Adouev. What was not at first perceived was that the sympathies of the author were really all on the side of the latter. That was more

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than Russian criticism, in those early days, could comprehend. The novel was written with an incomparable maestria of style, its author was proclaimed an ' artist' of the first order, and it was taken for granted that he was ironically indifferent to all that was fermenting in the Russian society of that time.

" Gontcharoff did not attempt to protest On the contrary, when, several years later, he participated in the diplomatic mission of Admiral Pontiatine to Japan, he brought back from his voyage around the world nothing but picturesque memorials, in which we may vainly seek for the least trace of a serious interest in the somewhat important political work to which he had been called to contribute. His beautiful work, The Frigate * Palladaj is of deep interest in this connection, and we are astonished at the slight notice which has been given to it by the posthumous appreciators of the great writer.

" It was the novel called Oblomoff which raised the literary reputation of Gontcharoff to its height. Since the prose writings of Pouschkine, the Russian public had never been presented with a work of such technical perfection. The brilliant commentaries of Dobroliouboff, in spite of the paradoxical nature of that critic's explanation of the social range of the character of the hero of this novel, of the widespread presence of Oblomovism amongst us, placed Gontcharoff finally in the rank of those Russian writers who have understood their own age the best.

" When, many years later, The Abyss appeared, Dobroliouboff had passed away, and the views which he had defended with so much brilliant paradox were beginning to lose ground. This new novel was admired mainly for its literary qualities and no attempt was made to study its social

aim. Gontcharoff was so much distressed at this, that, in spite of his inveterate hatred of literary polemics, he himself undertook to produce a commentary on his novel, and he published that Better Late than Never, of which we have ^ already spoken.

" The great writer declared, in this essay, that his three novels had had but one and the same purpose, that of illustrating the struggle between the new spirit which came from the West in consequence of Peter the Great's reforms, and the instinctive resistance of the national Russian character against this stream of foreign influence. In spite of all his explanations, he scarcely made it plain why, after showing himself a resolute partisan of the new ideas in A Common Story and in Oblomoff, he came to place himself quite as firmly, in The Abyss, on the side of the past, as against the present and the future. His position, when he had explained it, remained as enigmatical as it was before.

" The only way in which this enigma is to be solved, is, we think, by examining the personality of Gontcharoff himself. It has generally been held that of all the authors of the first order who adorned that literary Pleiad, of which ornaments he unquestionably was one of the purest and most splendid—Gontcharoff was also the most objective. He has always been represented as an impossible observer, disdainful even to indifference of the facts and the characters which he has depicted in his works. At the risk of seeming paradoxical, I venture to believe that this is a mistake, and that the basis of the three novels of the illustrious writer is nothing else than the permanent inward struggle between diametrically opposed sides of his own character. The two Adouevs of A Common Story, Oblomoff and Stoltz, Raisky and his old aunt in The Abyss, seem to

me to be successive incarnations of the two contrasted facets of the soul of the man who created these types.

" By his temperament, Gontcharoff was all his life the typical representative of the national Russian laisscr-aller against which his cultivated intelligence and his vast and varied knowledge energetically protested. This doubling of the type, so frequent with us Slavs, perpetually weighed down to the ground his great intellect and his beautiful soul. What will render immortal and for ever sympathetic to Russian readers the various works of this incomparable writer, is the constant recurrence in them of the most typical sides of our national character, the complexity of which is the real cause of all the incoherence of social life in Russia during nearly two centuries.

" When this is definitely understood and established, our critics will waste their time no longer in endeavouring to draw more or less ingenious parallels between Gontcharoff, on the one side, and Tourgenieff, Dostoieffsky and Tolstoi, on the other. The author of Oblomoff will take his place apart, and his works will be studied as a valuable testimony to a condition of mind which explains many of the historical faults which have been made in Russia during the last fifty years."

This lucid exposition of the place held by Gontcharoff among his contemporaries cannot, I think, fail to be of service to those who make their first acquaintance with him in the pages of A Common Story.

EDMUND GOSSE.

A COMMON STORY

CHAPTER I

In the village of Grahae one summer day on the estate of Anna Pavlovna, a landowner of moderate means, every one in the house was up by daybreak, from its mistress to the house-dog Barbos. £ But Anna Pavlovna's only son, Alexandr Fedoritch, was still sleeping tlie sound sleep of a Boy of twenty; every/" one else in the house was _bustling and hurrying about. But they alf walked on tlp-iofiL and spoke in whispers, so as not to wake the young master. If any one made the least noise or spoke aloud, Anna Pavlovna would rush out at once like a lioness enraged and punish the indiscreet person with a severe rebuke or an abusive epithet, or, when her anger and her energy were equal to it, with a blow. "T

In the kitchen three servants were kept busy codEing on a scale fit for a dinner of ten persons, though the whole family consisted of no more than Anna Pavlovna and her son Alexandr Fedoritch. In the coach house they were rubbing and greasing the carriage. AIL were busy and were r-working with all their might 'Barbos^vas the only one^ who was doing nothing, but even^Tie"~tbok a share in the general activity in his own way. When a groom or coachman came near him or a maid ran by, he wagged his tail and sniffed the passing figure anxiously, while his eyes seemed to ask : " Are they ever going to tell me why we are all in such a bustle to-day ? "

T he bustle was because Anna Pa vlovn a was sending her son to Petersburg to get a post In the Civil Service there, v or, as "she herself expressed it, to see the world and show

A

himself. A fatal day for her ! This was why she was so i

broken-down and unhappy. Often in her distress she would open her mouth to give some direction, and would suddenly stop in the middle of a word, her voice failed and she turned aside, and wiped away her tears, or let them fall into the trunk which she was herself packing with Sashenka's linen.

Tears had long been gathering in her heart, they rose into her throat and choked her and were ready to burst out *

in torrents; but she was saving them up as it were for the leave-taking and did not often waste them drop by drop.

It was not only Anna Pavlovna who was grieved at the coming separation. Sashenka's valet, Yevsay, was also }

terribly.distressed. He was to set off with his master to Petersburg, and had to leave the warmest corner in the house, a place on the stove in the room of Agrafena, the prime minister of Anna Pavlovna's household, who was also, a fact of prime importance to "Yevsay, in charge of the keys of the stores.

Behind the stove there was only room for two chairs and a table, which was set with tea, coffee, and eatables. Yevsay »

had long had a place behind the stove and in the heart of Agrafena. On the other chair she was sitting herself.

The relations of A grafena and Yevsay were by now ancient history in the household. They, like every one else in the world, had been the subject of gossip and scandal, t

and then like every one else they had been dropped. Even their mistress had grown used to seeing them together, and '

for ten whole years they had been happy. Can many '

people out of all their lives count up ten years of happiness ? And now the moment of parting was at hand. Good-bye to the warm corner, good-bye to Agrafena Ivanovna, no more playing cards, and coffee and vodka and liqueurs— good-bye to it all!

Yevsay sat in silence, sighing deeply.

Agrafena, with a frown on her face, was bustling about her duties. She showed her sorrow in her own peculiar way. She poured out tea to-day with exasperation, and instead of giving the first cup of strong tea to her mistress as usual, she poured it away, as though she could not bear any one to get the benefit of it, and she took all reproof with stolid indifference*

She boiled the coffee too long, the cream was burnt, the cups slipped out of her hands. She could not put the tray down on the table without a crash; she could not shut the cupboard or the doors without slamming them. She did not shed tears, but was angry with everything and everybody instead. This, however, was always a prominent characteristic of hers. She was not often contented; things were mostly not to her taste; she used to grumble and complain of everything. But at this moment, so fatal for her, her character showed its full capabilities. More than anything she seemed to be angry with Yevsay.

" Agrafena Ivanovna !" he said in a sad subdued voice, quite out of keeping with his tall stout figure.

" Well, why did you sit down there, you booby ?" she asked, just as though he had taken a seat there for the first time. " Get along with you, I want to get out a towel."

"Ah, Agrafena Ivanovna !" he repeated lazily, sighing and getting up from his chair, and then at once falling back into it when she had taken the towel.

" He can do nothing but whimper! Here the fellow sticks ! Good Lord, what a nuisance, there's no getting rid of him!"

A nd she drop ped her spoon with a loud clank into the slop-5asin. " * * " Agrafena !" broke in suddenly from the other room,

S sk " are ^° u °^ °^ Y9 u L se J??£s_? Q on>t y ou H? ow l ^ at Sashenka "** i s resfingj^ TTave you come to blows, or what is it, at parting with your sweetheart ? "

"Mustn't stir for you—have to sit like the dead!" Agrafena hissed like a snake, wiping a cup with both hands as though she would have liked to have broken it to pieces.

" Good-bye, good-bye," said Yevsay, with a colossal sigh, "it's the last day, Agrafena Ivanovna!"

"And thank God for it! The devil's welcome to you for all I care, there will be more room. There—get along, one can't stir a step; you straddle your long legs all over the place!"

He touched her on the shoulder; how she answered him ! He sighed again, but did not move from his place, and it would have been quite needless if he had; Agrafena did not really wish him to go. Yevsay knew this, and was not uneasy.

" Who will take my place, I wonder ? " he asked always with a sigh.

" The devil!" she answered abruptly.

" So long as it's not Proshka. But who will play cards with you ? "

" Well, if it were Proshka, what does it matter to you ? " she asked angrily.

Yevsay got up.

" Don't play with Proshka, for mercy's sake, don't," he said anxiously, and almost menacingly.

" But who can prevent me ? You, pray, you scarecrow ? "

"My darling, Agrafena Ivanovna!" he began imploringly, seizing her round the waist, I should have said, if there had been any sign of a waist about her.

She responded to his embrace by a sharp elbow in his chest.

" My darling, Agrafena Ivanovna !" he repeated, " will Proshka love you as I do ? Look at him; what an impudent fellow he is; not a woman in the house he does not make up to. But me—ah! you are the only woman in the world for me. If it were not the master's will—oh ! "

He choked at this point, and waved his hand in the air.

Agrafena could hold out no longer; even her sorrow at last found vent in tears.

" But will you go away from me, you villain ? " she said, weeping. " What are you chattering about, stupid ? Me keep company with Proshka! Can't you see for yourself that you can never get a word of sense out of him ? He can do nothing but try to put his stupid arms round one."

" Did he do that ? Oh, the brute ! And you never told me ! I'd have shown him."

" Let him try it on! Am I the only petticoat in the house ? Me keep company with Proshka! What an idea! Even to sit by him makes me sick, the pig! And you have always to be on the look out with him, or he's trying to gobble up something on the sly; but you don't notice it, of course! "

" If such a thing should happen, Agrafena Ivanovna— the devil's too strong for us, you know—better let Grishka have my place here; at least he's a civil fellow and hard working; he didn't sneer "

" There's an idea now!" Agrafena fell upon him. " Why do you foist some one on me, as if I were like—like that! Go away, I say. It's not the likes of me to go and throw myself into any one else's arms. Only with you, you wretch, the devil truly led me into temptation, and I repent it. The very idea!"

" God bless you for your goodness ! it's a weight off my heart!" Yevsay cried.

"You're glad!" she shrieked savagely again; "it is a good thing you're glad at something—be as glad as you like."

And her lips grew white with anger. Both were silent.

" Agrafena Ivanovna," said Yevsay timidly, after a short pause.

" Well, what now ? "

" Why, I was quite forgetting; not a drop nor a morsel of anything have I tasted this morning."

" Oh, that's what you're after."

" I couldn't eat for sorrow, my dear."

She took from the bottom shelf of the cupboard, from behind a loaf of sugar, a glass of vodka and two huge slices of bread and ham. All this had long before been made ready for him by her own careful hand.

She threw them to him, as one would hardly throw a bone to a dog.

One piece fell on the floor.

" Here, then, ready for you ! yes! for you, may it choke you. But hush, don't munch for all the house to hear!"

She turned away from him with an expression of simulated aversion, but he slowly began to eat, looking doubtfully at Agrafena and covering his mouth with one hand.

Meanwhile the coachman appeared at the gates with the three horses, and took them under the shelter of the stable. Removing his cap, he took out of it a dirty towel and rubbed the sweat off his face. Anna Pavlovna saw him from the window, and she turned pale. Her knees trembled under her, and her arms hung limp, although she had been expecting it. Recovering herself with an effort, she called for Agrafena.

" Go on tiptoe, quietly, and see whether Sashenka is asleep," she said. " He will sleep too long, dear heart,

pei haps, and it is the last day; so I shall see nothing of him. But no! you can't do it. You'll be sure to thump into the room like a cow. I had better go myself/'

And she went.

" Go on, then, you're not a cow, I suppose" grumbled Agrafena to herself. " A cow, indeed ! you'd be glad of a few more such cows ! "

Alexandr Fedoritch himself met Anna Pavlovna on her way, a fair young man in all the bloom of youth, health and strength. He said good-morning cheerfully to his mother, but suddenly catching sight of the trunk and packages he seemed rather disturbed, walked away to the window in silence, and began to draw with his finger on the window-pane. After a minute he spoke again to his mother and looked unconcernedly, even with pleasure, at the preparations for the journey.

" What made you sleep so late, dearie ?" said Anna Pavlovna, "isn't your face a little swollen? Let me moisten your eyes and cheeks with some rose-water.

" No, I don't want any, mamma." r " What will you like for breakfast ? Would tea be best or ' coffee ? I have ordered some beef cutlets and sour cream fritters—what will you have ? "

" It's all the same to me, mamma."

Anna Pavlovna went on packing the linen, then stopped and gazed at her son with a look of anguish.

" Sasha! " she said, after a pause.

"What do you want, mamma?"

She hesitated to speak, as if she were afraid of something.

" Where are you going, my dear one, and why ? " she asked at last in a low voice.

"How, where, mamma? To Petersburg—why?—why to w

" Listen, Sasha," she said with great emotion, placing her hand on his shoulder, evidently with the intention of making a last appeal; " it is not too late ; think again, and stop."

"Stop! but how is it possible? Look, my clothes are packed," he said, not knowing what to say.

"Yourclothes packed, but there!—there!—see, now they are unpacked."

In three armfuls she had emptied all out of the trunk.

" How can it be so, mamma ? I am all ready—and to change so suddenly—what will they say ? "

He looked distressed.

" It is not so much for my own sake as for yours, that I persuade you not to go. Why are you going ? To try and find happiness. But have you not been happy here, I wonder? Does not your mother think of nothing_.elsfi.3lL, day long but how"to gratif^every_wish of yours ? Of course, at your age now, your mother's devotion alone is not enough for your happiness : and I don't expect it. Well, * look round you; every one is eager to please you. And Maria "Karpovna's daughter/ Sonushta?* There—you blusKecT Ah, my darling, how shejoves jou—God bless her! They say she has not slept foFthree nights 1"

" There! Mamma! how you talk ! She is so "

" Yes, yes ! as though I don't see. Ah, and, by-the-by, she has taken your handkerchiefs to hem. * I won't let anyone else do them,' she said, 'I will mark them myself.' You see. What more would you have ? Stay!"

He listened in silence, hanging his head and playing with the tassel of his dressing-gown.

" What will you find in Petersburg ?" she continued. " Do you think you will find life as easy there as here? Oh, my dear, God knows what you may have to bear and put up with; you will suffer cold and hunger and want There are plenty of bad people everywhere, but you won't meet with good ones so easily. As for social consideration, whether you are in town or country, you will be just as much a person of consideration. Suppose you don't see Petersburg society —still you may think yourself the best in the land living here; and so it is in everything, my dear one. You are a well-educated, fine, good-looking fellow. I am an old woman, and the only happiness left me in this world is the sight of you. You might marry, God might bless you with children, and I could nurse them and you could live without troubles or anxiety, a peaceful tranquil life, envying no man—but there, perhaps things may not go well—perhaps you will remember my words. Sashenka! stay!"

He coughed and sighed, but did not utter a word.

" A nd look out here." s he continued, opening the door on to the balcony^J^are not you sorry yourself to be leaving sucrTa home?"

From the balcony came a fresh scent. Round the house , right into the distance stretched the garden, full of old lime , trees, thick wild roses, service-berries, and bushes of lilac. And among the trees were beds of bright-coloured flowers, , and here and there, little paths ran zigzagging in and out, v while in the distance was a softly splashing lake, on one side golden with the rays of the morning sun and smo'oth as glass, on the other as dark-blue as the sky mirrored • in it, and stirred by faint ripples./ And then an amphitheatre formed by the fields of waving corn and bordered by a dark forest. L *~ Anna Pavlovna, screening her eyes from the sun with one hand, with the other pointed out every object in turn to her son.

" Look ! " she said, " how abundantly God has blessed our meadows! There, from that field of rye alone we shall harvest four thousand bushels ; and there is the wheat and the buckwheat: only the buckwheat is not as good this year as last; it looks as though it will be poor. And the forest too! how the forest has grown ! Think how great is the wisdom of God 1 The fuel from our share we shall sell for a thousand at least. And the game, too ! And you know all this is yours, my dear; I am only your steward. Look at the lake, how splendid ! It is really heavenly ! The fish are in shoals there \ we only need to buy sturgeon ; the carp and the perch and the gremilles are simply swarming, we have enough for ourselves and our people as well. Over there are your cows and horses grazing. Here you alone are master of all, but in Petersburg I daresay everybody will think himself as good as you are. And you want to run away from all this plenty, you don't even know what you are running to—to your ruin perhaps. God help you! Do stay !" He was silent.

"But you are not listening," she said. "What are you looking at so steadily ? "

He pointed with his hand silently and thoughtfully into the distance. Anna Pavlovna looked and her face fell.

There between the fields ran a path twisting like a snake and disappearing into the forest, the path to the promised land—to Petersburg.

Anna Pavlovna was silent for some minutes, trying to recover herself.

" That's how it is, then ! " she said at last, sadly. " Well, my dear, God bless you ! Go, then, if you are so bent on it. I will not oppose it. You shall not say anyway that your mother monopolised your young life. ,,

Poor mother! This is all the recompense for your love ! Was not this what you expected ?

Ah, but mothers expect no recompense. A mother's love is without reason, without power of choice. If you are great, renowned, proud, handsome, if your name is on men's lips, and your exploits make a noise in the world, then your old mother's head is trembling with happiness, she weeps and laughs and prays long and fervently. And the son, for the most part, does not even think of sharing his triumphs with his mother. If you are poor in mind and spirit, if nature has stamped you with the stigma of deformity, and the pangs of disease torture you body and soul, or if men spurn you from them and there is no place for you among them—the more place for you in your mother's heart. She clasps her misshapen, deficient child all the closer to her heart, and her prayers are still longer and more fervent.

How can we blame Alexandr for egoism, because he was determined to leave Tiome? He was twent y^ From, his nursery life had been all smiles"Tor~1iim—hii mother iddltgeTTTiim and spoiled him^ as mothers do spoil an only son; his nurses all sang to him from his cradle that he would walk in gold and never know sorrow; his teachers declared that he would do something, and, in addition to the adoration of his own household, the daughter of their neighbour smiled on him. And the old cat, Vaska, seemed to be more amiable to him than to any one else in the house.

Sorrow, tears, trouble—all that he knew of only by hearsay, as we know of some disease, which has not appeared openly, but which lurks hidden away somewhere in men. So the future presented itself to him in rainbow colours. Something beckoned him into the distance, but what precisely, that he could not tell. Seductive phantoms glimmered before him, but he could never catch a close view of them; he could hear mingled sounds—now the

voice of glory, nojL the voice of love—and all moved him to a sweet unrest. J

The world of his home soon seemed narrow to him. Nature, and his mother's fondness, the devotion of his nurses and of all the household, his soft bed, and dainty food and purring cats—all these comforts, so dearly prized in the decline of life, he would have gladly exchanged for

i the unknown, full of alluring and mysterious fascination.

4 Even his love for Sophia—a first, soft, rosy love—did not J restrain him. What was this love to him? He dreamed

! of a colossal passion which should achieve great exploits and

. triumph over every obstacle. He loved Sophia meanwhile with a small love while waiting jbr thegreater. He dreamed, too, of great deeds in his country'sservice. He studied many subjects and diligently. On his certificate it was recorded that he had mastered some dozen sciences and half-dozen languages, ancient and modern. Above all he dreamed of making a name as a writer. His verses were the admiration of his school-fellows. Before him stretched a number of paths; and they seemed each better than the other. He did not know into which to throw himself. Only the straight path was hidden from his eyes; had he . seen it, even now perhaps he would not have gone away.

How could he stay? His mother wished it—that was quite another matter and very natural. In her heart all feelings had died away except one—love for her son, and it clutched feverishly at this last object. Except for him what was left for her ? Nothing but death. It has long been an accepted fact that a woman's heart cannot live without love.

Alexandr had been spoiled, but was not demoralised by his home life. He was so happily formed by Nature that his mother's love and the adoration of all around him only influenced him in a good direction, prematurely awakening, for example, his sympathetic feelings, and inspiring in him an excessive confidence in every one. This very fact perhaps tended to kindle ambition in him, but ambition in itself is only a mould; all will depend on what is the substance you pour into it.

f By far the greatest danger for him was the fact that his

Tnother, for all her devotion to him, could not give him a

true view of life, and did not prepare him for the struggle

A COMMON STORY .11

which awaited him and awaits every man in his turn. Bui this would have needed a master hand, a clear intellect, and a fund of great experience not bounded by the narrow provincial horizon. It would have needed some one who was even able to love him rather less, not to think of him every minute, not to remove out of his way every care and every obstacle, not to weep and to suffer in his place even in his childhood, so as to enable him to feel the approach of difficulties for himself, to meet them with his own forces, and to think for his own future—in a word, to understand that he is a man. How was Anna Pavlovna to know all this, still more to put it into practice J7 The reader has seen what she was. Would he not like to see more of her ?

She had already forgotten her son's selfishness. Alexandr Fedoritch found her engaged in packing a second time his clothes and linen. In the bustle and the preparations for the journey she had apparently completely forgotten her sorrow.

" Here, Sashenka, notice well where I put things," she said. " Below everything, at the bottom of the trunk, the sheets, a dozen. Look, is it right in the list? "

"Yes, mamma."

" All with your mark, you see. A. F. A., all our darling Sonushka. Without her our stupid creatures would not have been ready for a long time. What next ? Ah, the pillow-cases. One, two, three, four—yes, all the dozen here. Here are your shirts, three dozen—what linen ! Look at it —it's Dutch make—I drove myself to the shop, to Vassili Vassilitch's; he brought out the three best pieces he had. Mind you count them over by the list, dear boy, every time you get them home from the laundress; they are all bran new. You won't see many such shirts in Petersburg, very likely they will change them; there are such dishonest creatures to be sure, who have no fear of God. Socks— twenty-two pairs. D o y ou know wh 9t T haYS t hni1 g hr of ?

TQDUt your porkpr-hook with ynnr trinity inj^sork^ Vnu

w flTnb 't need any_iilLy£u get to Petersburg—so Ond ffra.nt T if anything should hap pen, they ™*y 1-11™™^^ v^n«- *v>«>y w ill not find It. Anil" the letter tQ.^our uncle I. .have.put the re, too] now"deHghtecTKe"will be toTe sure ! Here's seventeen years gone by and we've never sent a word to one another—that's a long time. Here are your neckties, and

here are the handkerchiefs; one half-dozen is still with Sonushka. Don't tear your handkerchiefs, my darling; they are all good cambric. I bought them at Meheev's at two and a quarter roubles a yard. Now, that's all the linen. Now your clothes. But where is Yevsay ? Why isn't he looking on ? Yevsay !"

Yevsay came lazily into the room.

" What are your orders ? " he asked still more lazily.

" What are my orders ? " repeated Anna Pavlovna angrily. " Why aren't you looking where I pack the things ? But when you want anything on the journey, you will go and turn everything topsy-turvy. He can't tear himself from his sweetheart, such a treasure ! The day is long enough, you will have plenty of time. Is this how you mean to look after your master in Petersburg ? You had better be careful. Look here : these are the dress clothes ; you see where I lay them? And you, Sashenka, be careful of them; don't wear them every day; the cloth cost sixteen roubles a yard. When you go to see the best people wear it and don't sit down all anyhow, like your auntie, who never could sit down on an empty chair or sofa, but was bound to go and plump down where some one had put a hat or some such thing; the other day she sat down on a saucer of jam—such a mess she made ! When you go out rather more quietly wear this coat here. Now your waistcoats—one, two, three, four. Two pairs of trousers. Well, there are clothes to last you the next three years. Ah ! I am tired and no mistake, the whole morning I have been on my legs. You can go, Yevsay. Let us talk a little of something else. Soon our guests will be here, and then there will be no time." She sat down on the sofa and made her son sit down beside her.

" Well, Sasha," she said after a short silence, " you are now going to a strange land."

" A strange land ! Petersburg ! How you talk, mamma."

" Wait a little, wait a little, hear what I want to say! God alone knows what awaits you there, what you will meet with, good and bad. I trust He, our Father in Heaven, will guard you; and you, my dear, above all, don't forget Him; remember that without faith there is no salvation anywhere or in anything. You will take a good position there, you will mix with people of consequence—indeed, we

are as good as anybody; vo ur father was a nob leman, a major—all the same, humble yourself before the Lord God; pray both in good fortune and in bad; and not like the proverb—' the peasant does not cross himself till he hears the thunder.' There are men, who, while they have good luck, don't even go to church, and then when they come to grief, they will put up candles at a rouble a piece, and will give alms to the poor—that is a great sin. And while we are talking of the poor—don't waste money on them too often, don't give away too much. Why should you spoil them ? They won't think any the more of you for it. They will spend it in drink and only laugh at you. You have a soft heart, I know; you would be ready, I dare say, to give away even a sixpenny piece. No, that's not necessary; God will provide I Will you visit the house of God ? Will you go every Sunday to Mass ? "

She sighed.

Alexandr was silent. He remembered that while he was studying at the university and living in the capital of the province, he had not been very zealous in going to church, and in the country it was only from desire to please his mother that he had accompanied her to mass. He was ashamed to tell a lie. His mother understood his silence' and sighed again.

" Well, I won't compel you," she continued, " you are a young man—how could you be as zealous in the house of God as an old woman like me? Perhaps your official duties now will hinder you, or you will be staying late at some grand houses and will oversleep yourself. God will have pity on your, youth. Don't be troubled; you have a mother; she will not oversleep. So long as there is a drop of blood left in my body, so long as my tears are not dried up in my eyes, and God has compassion on my sins, I will crawl, if I have not the strength to walk, along the road to church. I will give my last breath, I will shed my last tear for you, my dear. My prayers shall win you health and position and decorations and heavenly and earthly blessings. Can it be that He, our Father in Heaven, will despise the prayers of a poor old woman ? For myself I want nothing. Let Him take everything from me, health, life, sight—only may He grant you every pleasure, every happiness and good "

She could not finish. Tears began to fall from her eyes.

Alexandr jumped up from his place. "Mamma," he said.

" There, sit down, sit down !" she replied, hastily wiping away her tears. " I have still a great deal more to talk to you about. What was I going to say? It's gone out of my head. You see what a memory I have. Ah! keep the fasts, my dear. That is a great thing ! On Wednesdays and Fridays, God will pardon it, but Lent—God forbid ! Look at Mikhailo Mikhailitch, he thought himself an enlightened man, but what happened to him ? Festival and fast alike— he eat as greedily as ever. It positively makes my hair stand on end. He gave to the poor to be sure, but was his charity acceptable to the Lord ? They say he once gave a sovereign to an old man; he took it to be sure, but turned his back and spat. All bowed to him, and God knows what they said to his face, but behind his back they crossed themselves when they thought of him, as though he were a devil."

Alexandr listened with some impatience and gazed from time to time out of window at the distant road.

She was silent for a minute.

" Take care of your health before all things," she continued. " If you are seriously ill—which God forbid !— write. I will make a great effort and come to you. Who would look after you in Petersburg ? Why they would even seize the opportunity to rob you in your sickness. Don't go into the streets after dark; keep away from ferocious-looking people. Take care of your money—save it for a rainy day. S pend it reasonably. From money—the acqursed thing—comes_every thi ng go o(f a"nft""gvrt'.~" DonX be^Ttraragaht: "don 't w aste Tt on_ needless. whims t "*You will receive from me, without fail, two thousand five hundred roubles a year. Two thousand five hundred roubles is no small matter. Don't spend it on any kind of luxury, nothing of that sort, only don't deny yourself anything you can have; if you want any dainty, don't grudge the money. Don't give way to wine; ah, it is the greatest enemy of mankind! And," here she dropped her voice, " beware of women L J kno w them. There are creatures so s &ame-less, that thejL^iU throw themselves o n yo ur ne ck wh en they see such a——" She Tooked lovingly at her son.

" That's enough, mamma; isn't it time I had my breakfast?" he asked almost with vexation.

"Directly—directly—now one word more. Don't set y our heart on the wife of anot h er/' she went on hurrie dly. * "t hat is a great sin ! ' Jjo not covet your neighbour's wife* is written, in irjgjicriptujes. If any woman there tries to giThold of you—to marry you—God forbid!—don't dare to think of it! They will be ready to entrap you, when they see you have money and are good-looking. I daresay at your chiefs or at some other distinguished and wealthy grandee's, they will set their caps at you and try to make a match for their daughters. Well, then, it might be, only write to me. I will come somehow and will see that they are not palming off just any girl on you, simply to get rid of her, some old maid or poor creature. Every one will try to make up to a match like you. But if you yourself fall in love, and she proves to be a good girl—well then," here she lowered her voice, "Sonushka need not be considered." (The old woman in her love for her son was ready even to act against her conscience.) " After all, what was Maria Karpovna thinking about ? Her ) daughter is no match for you. A country girl! There » are others besides her who would be glad to get hold of you."

" Sophia—no, mamma—I shall never forget her," said ( Alexandr.

"Well, well, my dear, never mind, I only mentioned it. Work a little in your situation, come home here and then, as God sees fit—there are always plenty of girls. If you don't forget her—well, then. But if "

She wanted to say more, but had not the heart; and bending to his ear she asked softly, " And will you remember—your mother ? "

" See what you've worked yourself up to," he interrupted, " please let them serve what you have, omelet or whatever it is. Forget you; how could you imagine such a thing ? May God punish me!"

"Hush, hush, Sasha," she broke in quickly; "why are you calling down such things on your head ? No, no, whatever happens, if such a thing comes to pass, let me suffer alone. You are young, you are only beginning life, you will have friends, you will marry—a young woman will

f

fill the place of your mother and of every one for you. No, may God bless you as I bless you !"

She kissed him on the forehead and so ended her sermon

" But why is it nobody comes ? " she said. " Not Maria Karpovna, nor Anton Ivanitch nor the priest are come. The mass must be over by now, I should think. Ah, here is some one coming! Anton Ivanitch, I fancy—yes, it is he; speak of the devil "

Who does not know Anton Ivanit ch ? He is a Wandering Jew. He has existed always, everywhere, from "the niSst ancient times, and has never become extinct. He was present at the Greek and Roman symposiums, and certainly tasted the fatted calf killed by the happy father on the return of the Prodigal Son.

Among us in Russia he takes various forms. The one in question had twelve serfs mortgaged over and over again; he lived almost in a hut, a kind of queer building resembling a loghouse—the entrance somewhere behind over some timber, close up to the hedge; but for twelve years he had been continually declaring that in the following spring he would start building a new house. He kept no housekeeper in his house. There was not a man of his acquaintance who had dined, supped or drunk a cup of tea in his house, but also there was not a man with whom he had not dined, supped or drunk tea fifty times a year. In days gone by Anton Ivanitch used to walk about in loose pantaloons and a full skirted overcoat, now he wears on weekdays a surtout and trousers, on holidays, a frock-coat—of what sort of cut God only knows. In figure he is fat, because he has no sorrows, no cares, no emotions, though he pretends that he spends his whole life in the sorrows and cares of others; but it is well-known that the sorrows and cares of others do not make us thin; that is a fact admitted on all hands.

In reality Anton Ivanitch was never of use to any one, yet without him not a single ceremony took place, not a wedding, nor a funeral. He was at all the formal dinners and evening parties and at all family gatherings; no one would stir a step without him. You may imagine perhaps that he was very useful, giving good advice here, arranging some difficulty there. Not a bit of it! No-one had ever

entrusted him with anything of the kind; he understood nothing, could do nothing; could not manage a matter in the law courts, could not act as go-between or mediator, could do absolutely nothing.

But yet they did commission him sometimes to call in and take a polite message from such a one to such a one, and he takes it without fail and seizes the opportunity to get a breakfast there ; or to inform such a one that certain papers have been received, but their exact nature they would not confide to him; or to take somewhere a little jar of honey or a handful of seeds with the precept " not to spill and not to spoil; " or to carry congratulations on some one's birthday. And they employ Anton Ivanitch, too, in such matters as they consider it unsuitable to leave to a servant. "We can't send Petrushka, he would be sure to make a mistake about it. 'No, better let Anton Ivanitch go with it! It would never do to send a man ; so and so would be offended, better get Anton Ivanitch to go!"

So every one would have been astonished if he were nowhere to be seen at a dinner or a supper. "But where is Anton Ivanitch ?" every one would be sure to ask in surprise. " What's wrong with him ?—why isn't he here ? " And the dinner would hardly seem a dinner at all.

Anton Ivanitch came in and took Anna Pavlovna's hand.

" Good-morning, ma'am, good-morning, Anna Pavlovna! I have the honour of congratulating you on something new."

"W T hat is that, Anton Ivanitch?" inquired Anna Pavlovna, looking at herself from head to foot.

" Why the little bridge at the gates! You must have only just had it put up. Why, I listened—the planks didn't dance under my feet. I looked, and it was new !"

He always used when he met acquaintances to congratulate them on something or other, either on Lent, or on the spring* or on the autumn; if, after a spell of warm weather, frost had set in, then he would congratulate them on the frost, if the frost had just broken up, then on the thaw.

On this occasion there was nothing of this kind to fix on, but he still managed to find something.

" Kind regards to you from Alexandra Vassilievna, Matrena Mihailovna and Piotr Sergeitch," said he.

"I thank you sincerely, Anton Ivanitch! Are their children well ? "

B

" Yes, thanks be to God. I bring you the blessing of the church, the good father is just on my heels. But have you heard, ma'am, our good Semen Arkhipytch ? "

" What is it ? " asked Anna Pavlovna, in dismay,

" Ah, he has taken leave of us for ever."

" You don't say it ? When did it happen ? "

" Yesterday morning. They sent to let me know in the evening; a lad galloped up; and I set off and did not sleep all night. They were all in tears; I had to console them and see to everything; every one in the house was quite overcome, nothing but weeping. I was all alone."

"Merciful heavens," said Anna Pavlovna, shaking her head, " such is life ! But how could it happen ? Only this week he sent us his greetings."

" Yes, ma'am—ah ! but he had been ailing a long while, the old man was a good age, the wonder is that he had never been laid up till now."

"A good age? He was only a year older than my poor husband. Well, God's peace be with him!" said Anna Pavlovna, crossing herself. "I am grieved for poor Fedosia Petrovna, she is left with little children on her hands, it's a serious matter—five, and almost all little girls. And when is the funeral to be ? "

" To-morrow."

"Ah, every heart has its own sorrow, Anton Ivanitch, here am I seeing my son off."

"There's no help for it, Anna Pavlovna, we are all mortal;' man is born to sorrow,' is written in the Scriptures."

"Well, don't be vexed with me for distressing you a little, let us sorrow together; you love us like one of our own family."

" Ah, Anna Pavlovna ! and whom could I love as I do you? Have I many friends like you? You know how precious you are. 1 have so many cares, and that reminds me of my building. Only yesterday I was disputing all the morning with the contractor, but somehow we could not agree on anything. Yet how, thought I, am I to keep away ? What, thought I, will she do without me ? She is no longer young. Why she will be beside herself!"

" God reward you, Anton Ivanitch, for not forgetting us! And, indeed, I am not myself; my head is in such a whirl.

I can see nothing; my throat is sore with crying. I beg you to take a little to eat; you must be tired and hungry."

" I thank you sincerely. I confess that I had a drop at Piotr Sergeitch's as I was passing and took a mouthful with him. But that is no hindrance. The father is comipg; let him give the benediction. Yes, here he is on the stairs !"

The priest came in. Maria Karpovna, too, arrived with her daughter, a plump and rosy girl, with a smile and tearful eyes. The eyes and the whole expression of face of Sophia said plainly : " I will love simply without caprice, I will be married like a nursemaid, and will obey my husband in everything and never think I know better than he; indeed, and how could one know better than one's husband ? it would be a sin. I will be diligent in housekeeping and sewing; I will bear him half-a-dozen children, and will suckle them, tend them, dress them and make their clothes." The plumpness and brilliance of her cheeks and the fine contours of her throat confirmed the promise of robust motherhood. But the tears in her eyes and her pathetic smile lent her at this moment a more romantic interest

Before anything else they listened to a prayer, for which Anton Ivanitch called in the domestics, lighted the candle, and took the book from the priest, when he had finished reading it, and handed it to the deacon, and afterwards poured the holy water into a little flask and put it into his pocket, saying " That's for Agafea Nikitishnya." They sat down to table. Except Anton Ivanitch and the priest, they could hardly eat a morsel, but to make up for this, Anton Ivanitch did full justice to the Homeric breakfast. Anna Pavlovna kept weeping and stealthily wiping her eyes.

" Don't keep on so, ma'am," said Anton Ivanitch with assumed vexation, pouring out some liqueur for himself. "Why, are you sending him to certain death, do you imagine ? " Then he drank up half the liqueur and smacked his lips.

" What liqueur! What an aroma it has ! Ah, ma'am, you wouldn't find such liqueur anywhere in the district!" he said, with an expression of great pleasure.

" It is no more than thr-ee-ee years old!" said Anna Pavlovna, sobbing, " it has—only to-day—been uncorked for you.

" Ah, Anna Pavlovna, it makes me ill to see you,

ao A COMMON STORY

began Anton Ivanitch again, "I don't know what you deserve."

" But only imagine, Anton Ivanitch, an only son, and he going out of my sight; it will kill me and there will be no one to bury me."

"And what do we count for? What? Am la stranger or what ? And why in such a hurry to die ? More likely to be married than that—I would dance at the wedding. But do give over crying."

"I cannot, Anton Ivanitch, indeed I cannot; I don't know myself why my tears will come."

" The idea of keeping such a young man shut up ! Let him have his freedom, he will find bis wings, and then he will do wonders; there he will gain a position."

" Good luck to your words! And why have you taken so little pie ? Take some more."

" Yes, I will have some; just this piece. To your health, Alexandr Fedoritch ! A lucky journey, and come home quickly and get married ! Why do you blush, Sophia Vassilievna ? "

" I ?—oh, no. I'm so "

" Ah, young people, young people—he ! he ! he !"

" In your company one cannot feel one's sorrow, Anton Ivanitch," said Anna Pavlovna, " you know so well how to comfort one. God give you health! But do take a little liqueur."

" I will drink a little, ma'am, I will indeed; who would not drink at such a leave-taking ! "

The breakfast came to an end. The coachman had long ago packed the carriage. They brought it round to the steps. The seivants ran about one after another. One carried a trunk, another a bundle, a third a little bag, and then ran back after something else. Like flies round a drop of syrup, the servants clustered round the carriage, and every one wanted to have a hand in it.

" Better lay the trunk so," said one, " and here the hamper with the provisions."

" And where are they to put their legs then ? " answered the other, "the trunk's better lengthways, and the hamper we can fix alongside."

" The feather bed will roll off, if the trunk goes lengthways; better across. What next ? Were the slippers packed ? "

" I don't know. Who packed them ? "

" I didn't. Go and see whether they are still there upstairs."

" You go yourself."

" And why not you ? I haven't time !"

" Here, don't forget this," screamed a girl, holding up a small parcel above her head.

" Give it here!"

" Stuff this in somehow into the trunk, it's been forgotten to the last," said another, jumping on the steps and handing in a brush and comb.

" Where can one stuff it now ?" cried the stout valet angrily to her. " Get away with you, you see the trunk is at the very bottom."

" It's the mistress's orders; doesn't matter a straw to me!"

" Well, give it here, look sharp; we can put it here in the pocket at the side."

The shaft horse continually lifted and shook his head. The bell every time gave a shrill tinkle, reminding one of partings, but the trace horses stood thoughtfully, their heads lowered, as though they understood all the charms of the journey which lay before them, and sometimes lashed their tails or thrust out an underlip at the shaft horse. At last the fatal minute came. There was another little prayer offered up.

" Be seated, be seated, all of you !" was Anton Ivanitch's order. " Pray sit down, Alexandr Fedoritch; and you, Yevsay, sit down. Sit down, sit down !" And he himself just sat for a second on the edge of a chair. 4< Now let us go, in God's name."

At this point Anna Pavlovna broke down and fell upon Alexandr's neck.

"Farewell, farewell, my dear," was heard among her sobs. " Shall I see you again ?" Nothing more could be distinguished. At this moment the tinkle of another troika-bell was heard; a telega flew into the court, drawn by three horses. From the telega leaped out a young man, covered with dust, who rushed into the room and threw himself on Alexandr's neck.

" Pospveloffl" —" Adouev!" they exclaimed, at the same instant clasping each other in an embrace.

"From where—how—have you come?"

U"

" From home. I have been galloping day and night) on purpose to say good-bye to you/'

" Friend, friend ! true friend !" said Adouev with tears in his eyes. "To journey 150 miles to say good-bye ! Oh, there is friendship in the world ! For life, isn't it ? " said Alexandr, passionately clasping his friend's hand and falling into his arms.

"Till death," he replied, pressing his hand still more warmly as he returned his embrace.

" Write to me !"

" Yes, and you too write."

Anna Pavlovna did not know how to make enough of Pospyeloff. The departure was delayed for half an hour. At last they were ready.

All went on foot as far as the wood. Sophia and Alexandr seized their chance, while passing through a dark passage, to throw themselves in each other's arms.

"Sasha, dear Sasha!" " Sonitchka!" they stammered, and their words were lost in a kiss.

" You will forget me there ? " she said tearfully.

" Oh, how little you know me! I shall come back; believe me, and never another "

" Here take this quickly; it is my hair and a ring."

He quickly put both in his pocket.

First walked Anna Pavlovna with her son and Pospyeloff, then Maria Karpovna and her daughter, and lastly the priest and Anton Ivanitch. At some distance followed the carriage. The coachman could scarcely hold in the horses. All the servants surrounded Yevsay at the gates.

" Good-bye, Yevsay Ivanitch; good-bye, old boy, don't forget us !" was heard on all sides.

" Good-bye, brothers, good-bye, don't remember ill against me."

" Good-bye, Yevsushka, good-bye, my darling," said his mother, hugging him. " Here is a holy image for you; it is my blessing. Remember the faith, Yevsay. Don't give way to drink or thieving; serve the master faithfully and well. Good-bye, good-bye!"

She hid her face in her apron and went away.

" Good-bye, mother," said Yevsay lazily.

A little girl of twelve rushed up to him.

" Say good-bye to your little sister!" said an old woman.

A COMMON STORY

23

" And where have you come from ?" said Yevsay, kissing her, " well, good-bye, good-bye! Run home now to the hut, bare-legs/'

Agrafena stood last of all, apart from the others. Her face was livid.

"Good-bye, Agrafena Ivanovna!" said Yevsay, slowly, raising his voice and holding out his hand to her.

She let him embrace her, but did not respond to his embrace, only her face worked.

" Here's something for you!" she said, taking a little bag of something from under her apron and thrusting it upon him. " Well of course you will walk out with the Petersburg girls, there!" she said, with a side-long glance at him. And in that glance was apparent all her suffering and her jealousy.

" I walk out, I ? " began Yevsay. " God blast me, strike me blind, may I sink into the earth, if I do any such thing there."

" All right, all right!" muttered Agrafena, incredulously, " but inside you—ugh !"

" All I'd almost f fr r &flttflP 1 " sa 'd Y 5 vs fl v i joking from his pock et a greasy pack of cards. " Fo r a keej)sake^"Xgrafen|i IvanQyjiajZLyflu ) you, know you cc^TTnoJ^get any here." *

She stretched QuLher- haad.

" Give it to me, Yevsay Ivanitch!" screamed Proshka out o f the crow d.

r ouj_ Til j?e damned frefore I^ive it to you,'' and h? put the-€a*ds into bin pooket.

" But givfijLhfimJp me, stupid!" said^Agrafiena^

" No ^Agrafena Ivano vn^ 'yfiTTmay do as you like , but I

™ nnV ffiy*y™ 1 fV )frn; ypn^"^JLlifiZ^!^^"^""XS>od-bye!" Without looking round he waved his Tiand and slowly moved off to the carriage which he looked as if he could have carried off on his shoulders—Alexandr, coachman and horses and all.

" Cursed fellow!" said Agrafena, looking after him and wiping away her falling tears with a corner of her apron.

At the forest a halt was made. While Anna Pavlovna was sobbing and saying good-by to her son, Anton Ivanitch patted one of the horses on the neck, then took him by the nose and shook him backwards and forwards, with which the horse seemed rather displeased, snorting and showing his teeth.

li Tighten the girth on the off-horse," said he to the coachman, " you see the pad is on one side."

The coachman looked at the pad and seeing that it was in its place did not get off the box but only straightened the breach a little with his whip.

" Well, it's time to start, God be with you !" said Anton Ivanitch. " Leave off tormenting yourself, Anna Pavlovna ! And you take your seat, Alexandr Fedoritch; you must reach Shishkov in daylight. Farewell, farewell! God give you happiness, rank, honours, all things good and happy, every kind of wealth and blessing! Now, in God's name, whip up the horses, but see you drive quietly along the slope!'' he added turning to the coachman.

Alexandr took his seat in the carriage dissolved in tears, but Yevsay went up to his mistress, knelt down at her feet and kissed her hand. She gave him a five-rouble note.

" See, Yevsay, remember, be a good servant and I will

^ marry you to Agrafena, but if not " She could say no

more. Yevsay got on to the box. The coachman wearied with the long delay, seemed to revive; he grasped his hat, set it straight on his head and took the reins ; the horses set off at first at a slight trot. He whipped the trace horses in turn one after the other, with a bound they began to draw and the troika flew along the road to the forest. The crowd of escorting friends stood silent and motionless till the carriage had passed altogether out of sight.

Anton Ivanitch was the first to recover himself.

" Well, now we must go home," he said.

Alexandr looked back from the carriage as long as anything was to be seen, then fell with his face hidden in the cushions.

" Do not leave me in my trouble, Anton Ivanitch," said Anna Pavlovna; " dine here."

" Very good, ma'am, I am ready; if you like I will sup here too."

" Yes, and you might stay the night as well."

" How can that be ? the funeral is to-morrow."

" Ah yes; well, I must not keep you. Remember me to Fedosia Petrovna; tell her that I grieve from my heart for her affliction, and I should have visited her myself, but God has sent, tell her, sorrow upon me—I have just parted with my son."

" I will tell her, I will tell her, I will not forget."

" Ah, Sashenka, my darling!" she murmured looking round. "There is nothing to be seen of him, he is gone."

Madame Adouev sat the whole day silent, and ate no dinner or supper. Anton Ivanitch talked and dined and supped to make up for her.

"Where is he now, my darling? " was all she could utter from time to time.

"By now he must be at Nefaeva. No, what am I saying?—he is not yet at Nefaeva, but not far off; there he will drink tea," answered Anton Ivanitch.

" No, he never takes tea at this time."

And so Anna Pavlovna in spirit travelled with him. Afterwards, when according to her calculations he must have reached Petersburg, she divided her time between praying, telling fortunes on cards and talking to Maria Karpovna.

And he ?

We shall meet him again at Petersburg.

CHAPTER II

/iotr Ivanitch Adquev . j>ut frero's uncle, had, like him, w >eeh sent to Petersburg wnen twenty years old by his elder [brother, Alexandr's father, and had lived there uninterruptedly Jbr seventeen years| He had not kept up a correspondence witETiTs relatives after his brother's death, and Anna Pavlovna had seen nothing of him since then, as he had sold his small property not far from her estate.

In Petersburg he passed for a wealthy man, and perhaps not without good grounds; he had an appointment under a certain influential personage, a secretary of special commissions, and had ribbons to wear in his buttonhole; he had a fine suite of rooms in a good street, kept three men and as many horses. He was not old, but what is called "a man in the prime of life"—between th irty-five an d forty. But he did not care to talk ^Phis age, not from petty vanity, but from a sort of deliberate calculation, as though with an idea of insuring his life on the easiest terms. Any way there was no sign in his manner of concealing his age, of any frivolous pretensions to pleasing the fair sex.

He was a tall, well-made man, with large regular features and a swarthy complexion, a smooth graceful carriage, and dignified but agreeable manners—one of those men who arejjenerally described by the term bel homme.

!is face, too, showed dignity—that is, the power of controlling himself and not allowing his face to be the reflection ^gf his feelings. He was of the opinion that this was improper both for his own sake, and for other people's, and behaved himself in public accordingly. Yet one could not call his face wooden; no, it was only tranquil. Sometimes he showed the traces of fatigue—doubtless from overwork. He was known to be both a man of business and a busy man. He always dressed carefully, even stylishly, but only within the limits of good taste ; his linen was unexceptionable; bis hands were plump and white, with long transparent finger-nails.

- One morning, when he had just waked up and rung his

\ bell, his man brought him in three letters together with the

tea, and informed him further of the arrival of a young

gentleman, who called himself Alexandr Fedoritch Adouev,

j and him—Piotr Ivanitch—uncle, and had promised to call

L-at-JLW£ly_ e _ o'clock. * Piotr Ivanitch listened tranquilly after

/

his wont to this piece of news, only pricking up his ears, and raising his eyebrows a little.

" Good, you can go," he said to the servant.

Then he took one letter, and was about to break it open,

when he paused and reflected.

, -"A nephew from the country—what a surprise!" he

\ muttered;."and I had hoped they had forgotten me in

those regions. Well, why should I trouble myself about

him ? I will get rid of him."

He rang again. .' "Tell that gentleman when he comes, that I set off 'directly I was up for my works, and shall be back in three /months."

" Yes, sir," said the servant, " and what shall I do with the presents ? "

" With what presents ? "

" A man brought them: the mistress, he says, sent them as presents from the country."

" Presents ? "

" Yes \ a barrel of honey, a bag of dried raspberries."

Piotr Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders.

" And two pieces of linen, and preserves."

" Very fine linen, I should imagine!"

" Yes, the linen is fine, and the preserves are of sugar/'

" Well, you can go, I will see them directly."

He took one letter, broke it open, and took a comprehensive look at the page. It was written in a large round hand like print, without punctuation,

Adouev began to read in an undertone.

" Honoured Sir, —Having been closely acquainted and friendly with your lamented parents, and having amused you not a little in your childhood and ofttimes eaten bread and salt in your house, therefore I cherish a warm feeling and an ardent hope that you have not forgotten the old man Vassili Tihovitch, as we here remember you and your parents with every kindness and we pray God "

"What a rigmarole? Who is it from?" said Piotr Ivanitch, looking at the signature. "Vassili Zayeshaloff! Zayeshaloff!—I'll be hanged if I remember it. What does he want from me ? "

And he began reading further.

" But my most humble petition and importunity to you —do not refuse it< little father—to you in Petersburg, unlike us in these parts, all of course is known and everything is in your reach. There has been fixed upon me a cursed lawsuit, and here's the seventh year come and gone, and I cannot shake it off my neck. Do you remember the little copse which lies one mile from my property ? The court made a mistake in the purchase deeds, and my adversary, Medvyedev, still persists in it; the point, he says, is a got-up one, and this he sticks to through thick and thin. This same Medvyedev is the fellow who always used to be poaching fish from your ponds without permission; your lamented father drove him away and put him to shame, and would have lodged a complaint with the governor for his impudence, but in the kindness of his heart—God rest his soul!—let him off, and he should not have had mercy on such a rogue. Help me, little father, Piotr Ivanitch; the affair is now before the Senate of Appeal, I don't know in what department, or under whom; but to be sure they will

tell you directly. Go and see the secretary and the senators; incline them in my favour, tell, them it's all a mistake, simply from a mistake in the purchase-deed that I am suffering ; for you they will do everything. While you are there, by the way, kindly trouble to obtain for me a patent of promotion and send it me. Further, little father, Piotr Ivanitch, there is a. little matter of the utmost importance: give your heart-felt sympathy to an innocently oppressed victim, and aid with advice and assistance. We have in the governor's service a councillor, Droshoff, a heart of gold more than a man ; he would die before he would betray a friend; in the town I have no lodging but his house. As soon as I arrive I go straight to him, I live there for weeks, and God forbid you should not make yourself at home; he will overwhelm you with good things to eat and drink, and cards from dinner till the middle of the night. And such a man has been passed over, without promotion, and now they are forcing him to send in his resignation. Go and see, my dear father, all the grandees there, and suggest to them what a man Afanasy Ivanitch is; if there is work to be done it goes like a house on fire in his hands; tell them he has been falsely denounced by an intrigue of the governor's secretary—they will listen to you, and write me by return of post. And go and see my old colleague KostyakofF. I have heard from one of your Petersburgers who has arrived here, Studentsin—no doubt you know him—that he is living at Peska; there the street boys will tell you the house ; write by the same post, don't be lazy, whether he is alive or dead, whether he is in good health, what he is doing, whether he remembers me. Get acquainted and make friends with him—he is a capital fellow —an open heart, and such an amusing fellow. I conclude my letter with a further request "

Adouev ceased reading, slowly tore the letter into four pieces and threw it under the table into a basket, and then stretched and yawned.

He took the other letter and began to read it also in an undertone.

" Dearest Brother, Gracious Sir, Piotr Ivanitch."

. , " What—a sister! " said Adouev, looking at the signature: *" Maria Gorbatov." He looked up at the ceiling, trying to

recollect something. "How is it?—some recollection— there, that's good—my brother was_ married to a Gorbatov; this is_htf.sistfav,thisj§==a"hl 1 rememberT**' V

Hefrowned and began to read. >

" Though fate has severed us, perhaps, for ever, and an ; abyss lies between us; years have rolled by "

He skipped a few lines and began further on:

"To the day of my death I shall remember that walk together near our lake, when you, at risk of your life and health, went knee-deep into the water and picked for me some great yellow flowers among the rushes, and how a kind • of juice ran out of the stems and stained our hands and ' you fetched water in your cap for us to wash them; we 1 laughed so much at it then. Ah, how happy I was that day! That flower I have still pressed in a book."

Adouev stopped. It was clear that this circumstance was . not very gratifying to him; he shook his head rather / suspiciously.

" But have you still kept the ribbons [he continued reading] that you snatched out of my drawer, in spite of my , entreaties ? "

" I snatched out a ribbon!" he said aloud, frowning ' angrily. He skipped a few more lines in silence and, read:

" But I was destined for the unwedded state, and have always been happy in it: there is no one to hinder my recalling those happy days."

" Ah, the old maid !" thought Piotr Ivanitch. " Isn't it astonishing she should still have yellow flowers in her mind? What more is there ? "

"Are you married, dearest brother, and to whom ? Who is that dear unknown friend, who smoothes the path of your existence ? tell me her name. I will love her like my own sister, and in my dreams her image will be joined with yours, and I will remember her in my prayers. But if you are not married, now what is the reason—write me frankly; no one will tear your secrets from me, I shall bury them in my bosom, and they shall be torn from me only together with my heart Do not delay; I am burning with eagerness to read your words, so incomprehensible "

" No, it's your words that are so incomprehensible!" thought Piotr Tvanitch.

"I did not know [he read] that our dear Sashenka had suddenly decided to visit the splendid metropolis— happy boy! he will see the magnificent houses and shops, will enjoy the luxuries of town, and will press his adored uncle to his bosom; but I—I—meanwhile shall be shedding tears over the memory of my own happy days. If I had known of his departure, I should have worked day and night and have embroidered a cushion for you: a negress with two dogs. You would not believe how often I have wept looking at that pattern; what is more sacred than friendship and fidelity ? Now I am possessed by one only thought; I shall devote my days to it; but I have no wool here good enough, and so I am venturing to beg you, dearest brother, to send me some like this pattern which I have enclosed, of the very best English wool as soon as possible from the first shop. But what am I saying ? what an awful thought arrests my pen! perhaps you have already forgotten me, and how should you remember the poor sufferer, who can but weep secluded from the world ? But no! I cannot think that you are a monster, like all men; no! my heart speaks and tells me that you have kept your old sentiment towards me—towards all—in the midst of all the pomps and pleasures of the great metropolis. This thought is a balm for my suffering heart. Forgive me, I cannot write more, my hand trembles.

" I remain till death yours,

"Maria Gorbatov."

"P.S.—Have you, brother, any good books by you? Send me some if you have any to spare; on every page I should remember you and weep, or get me some new from a shop, if they are not dear. They say the works of Mr. Zagoskin and of Mr. Marlinsky are very good—let it be those; and I have seen in the papers the title— 4 Of Prejudices' by Poozin—send me that—I can't endure prejudices."

Having read it through, Adouev was just going to get rid of the letter, but he stopped short.

a No," he thought, " I will keep it; there are people who make a speciality of such letters; some of them have whole collections—perhaps some one would be glad to have it.

He threw the letter into the beaded basket, which hung on the wall, then took up the third letter and began to read it:

"D ear B rother-in-law, Piotr Ivanitch^—Do you remeriflSerhow seventeen years ago we were preparing for your departure from us ? Now it has pleased God to send my own son on the same long journey. You will be delighted with him; he will remind you of our dear lamented Fedor Ivanitch. Sashenka is his father over again. God alone knows what my mother's heart has suffered in letting him go away to strange parts. I send him, my dear brother-in-law, straight to you; I was not willing he should lodge anywhere except with you "

Adouev again shook his head.

" Silly old woman !" he muttered and read on : " He might, in his inexperience, I daresay, have put up at the inn, but I knew that his uncle might feel hurt by that, and I bade him go straight to you. How delighted you will be when you see him! Don't let him want for advice, brother-in-law, and take him under your wing; I give him into your hands."

Piotr Ivanitch paused again.

u Of course you are all he has [he went on reading]. Look after him, don't spoil him too much, and don't be too severe with him; he is sure to get severity from some one, and strangers will be hard upon him, but he has no one to pet him, except his kinsman; and he is such an affectionate boy: you have only to see him and then you will not part with him. And tell the chief, in whose office he will be, to take care of my Sashenka and to treat him tenderly before all things; he has been tenderly cared for with me. Keep him from wine and cards. At night— you will no doubt sleep in the same room—Sashenka has a way of lying on his back; from this he is apt, dear heart, to toss and groan in his sleep; you must rouse him gently and turn him over, he will go off again at once; but in summer cover his mouth with a handkerchief, he is apt to sleep with it open and the tiresome flies are so troublesome in the morning; and don't let him want, either, in the matter of money."

Adouev frowned, but his face quickly brightened again, when he read further.

"But I am sending what is needful, and I have just put into his hands a thousand roubles, only don't let him waste it on trifles, and don't let sharpers get hold of him, to be sure one hears there are so many rascals and unscrupulous creatures of every sort in your metropolis. And, in conclusion, excuse all shortcomings, dear brother-in-law— I have quite got out of the habit of letter-writing.

" I remain, " Your respectful and affectionate sister-in-law,

" A. Adouev."

" P.S.—I send with this some presents from the country— some raspberries from our garden, some white honey, as clear as teardrops, some linen for two dozen shirts and some household preserves. Eat and wear them, and may they do you good, and when they are done, I will send more. And keep an eye over Yevsay : he is a quiet fellow and sober, but I daresay in time he will be spoiled, if he is you must let him have a whipping."

Piotr Ivanitch laid the letter deliberately on the table, still more deliberately took up a cigar, and after rolling it in his hands, began to smoke. He deliberated a long while on the trick, as he mentally called it, which his sister-in-law was playing upon him. He began to analyse closely what they were doing with him and what he ought to do himself.

He resolved the whole incident into the following propositions. His nephew he knew nothing of, and consequently cared nothing about, and therefore his heart imposed on him no obligations of any kind to him; the matter must be judged simply by the light of reason and common justice. /His brother had married, he had entered upon married life for his own pleasure—why should he, Piotr Ivanitch, be burdened with the responsibility of his brother's son, he who had enjoyed none of the advantages • of matrimony ? There was obviously no reason, i But a point presented itself on the other side. The mother had packed her son straight off to him, to his protection, not knowing whether he was willing to undertake this responsibility, not even knowing whether he was in a position to do anything for his nephew. Granted this

was absurd; still if the deed was done and his nephew Jin Petersburg, without assistance, without acquaintance, J without even letters of recommendation, young and quite inexperienced .... would he be doing right to leave him uncared for, to throw him on the world without advice and warnings, and if anything should go wrong with him, jvguld he not feel answerable to his conscience ?

At this point Adouev chanced to recall how seventeen years ago, his dead brother and Anna Pavlovna had despatched him to Petersburg. They certainly had not been able to do anything for him in Petersburg, he had made his own way .... but he remembered her tears at the leave-taking, her blessing, quite maternal, her fond caresses, her pies, and last of all her parting words: " Ah, when our Sashenka—then a child of three—is grown up, perhaps you, brother, will be good to him." Here Piotr Ivanitch stood up and went with quick steps into the hall.

f' " Vassili!" he said, " when my nephew comes, don't send 1 him away. But go and find out whether the apartment above here has beenfake^ that was tQ.fetnot long ago^ and ifiTlias riot"Beeh let yet, say that I will retain it for myself. Ah, these are the presents ! ' Well," what are we to "do with them ? "

u The man from our shop saw them just now, as they brought them upstairs; he inquired if we could let him have the honey. ' I will give you a good price,' said he,' and the raspberries should he take . . . .'"

" Good ! give them to him. Well, and where are we to put the linen ? Wouldn't it do for chair covers ? Put away the linen then and put away the jam, we could eat that— it looks good."

Piotr Ivanitch had just settled himself to shave when Alexandr Fedoritch appeared. He was just going to throw himself on his uncle's neck, but the latter, holding his soft youthful hand in his powerful one, kept him at some distance from him, ostensibly to get a good look at him, but apparently more with a view of preventing this demonstration and confining him to shaking hands.

" Your mother writes truly," he said, " you are the living image of my late brother; I should have known you in the street. But you are better looking. Well I will go on

c

A COMMON STORY

\

Y

\

shaving without ceremony, and you sit here opposite me, so that I can see you, and let us have a talk."

So saying Piotr Ivanitch continued what he was doing as though none were present, and began to soap his cheeks, stretching them with his tongue, first one, and then the other. Alexandr was overwhelmed with confusion at this reception and did not know how to begin the conversation. He attributed his uncle's coolness to the fact that he had not taken up his quarters with him at once.

"Well, how is your mother? Is she quite well? I suppose she begins to feel her age?" asked his uncle, making various grimaces before the glass.

" Mamma is well thank God, Auntie Maria Pavlovna desires to be remembered to you," said Alexandr timidly.

" Auntie charged me to embrace you for " He got up

and went up to his uncle, to give him a kiss on the cheek, or the head, or the shoulder, or whatever part of him he could get at.

" It's time your aunt had more sense at her age, but I see she is just as foolish as she was twenty years ago."

Alexandr went back to his seat in bewilderment.

" You received a letter, uncle ? " he said.

"Yes, I did."

" Vassili Tihovitch Zayeshaloff," began Alexandr, " earnestly begs you to examine his affair and interest yourself in it"

" Yes, he writes so to me. Such lunatics are not extinct among you yet then ? "

Alexandr did not know what to think—he was completely dumbfoundered by these remarks.

" Forgive me, uncle," he began at last in trepidation

" What ? " ' '" Forgive me for not having come straight to you; for having put up at the Diligence Hotel. I did not know your rooms."

— " What is there to apologise for ? You did very properly. Your good mother—heaven knows what she is thinking of. How could you have come to me without knowing whether I could put you up, or not ? Mine are bachelor's quarters, as you can see, for one only; a hall, a drawing-room, a dining-room, a smoking-room and a study, a wardrobe-room and a dressing-room—there isn't a room to spare. I

-v

A COMMON STORY 35

should have been in your way and you in mine. ButT

h ave found aJ Hgfoff Wo far ynii in frh* hniigo

* w Ah! deaPuncle!" said Alexandr, " how can I thank you for this kind service ? " v >

And he leaped up again from his seat with the intention " I

of showing his gratitude both in word and deed.

" Gently, gently, don't touch me ! " said his uncle, " the razors are very sharp," I'm afraid of your getting cut, or cutting me." ^

Alexandr perceived that in spite of all his efforts he would | , n , not succeed that day in even once embracing and pressing ! ^-. to his heart his adored uncle and put off this project for a ^\ future occasion.

"The room is pretty cheerful," began Pictr Ivanitch; " the look-out from the windows is rather on to walls, but of course you won't want to be always sitting at the window; when you are at home, you are always busy with something and haven't time to be gaping at a window. And it is not dear—forty roubles a month. There is an ante-room for vour maTT ' You must accustom yourself from the very be-1 ginning to live alone, without a nurse; to conduct your own little household, I mean to board at home, in a word to have a corner of your own— un chez sot, as the French say. There you will be able to entertain whom you please. However, when I dine at home, you are welcome, but o n other days—young men herejgenerally dine at an eating* houSl but I adviae yuiTtb send out for you7"3Tnher; at home you will be quieter and you won't be exposed to mixing with God knows who. Eh ? "

" I am very grateful, uncle."

" What is there to be grateful for ? Aren't you a relation ? I am only fulfilling my duty. Well, I will leave you now, I v am going out, I have my official work and also & factory ."

" I didn't know you had a factory, uncle."

" Yes, glass and porcelain works : but I am not the sole proprietor, mere are three of us partners."

" Is business good ?"

" Yes, fairly so; our sales are chiefly at the markets in the inland provinces. The last few years have been far from bad! If we have five years more like this, well and good. One partner to be sure is not very trustworthy—he does nothing but spend money, but I know how to keep

^

36 A COMMON STORY

him in check. Well, good-bye for the present. You go now and take a look at the town, stroll about, and dine somewhere, but come and have tea with me in the evening. I shall be at home, then we can talk a little. Here! Vassili, you show the room and help to get it ready."

"So this is how it is here, in Petersburg," thought Alexandr, sitting down in his new dwelling. " If my own uncle is like this, what will others be ? "

Young Adouev paced up and down his room deep in thought, but Yevsay talked to himself as he set the room to rights.

•' It's a queer way of living here," he muttered, in Piotr Ivanitch's kitchen. " I hear there's a baking once a month, the servants have their meals out. Ugh! my word, what people! A pretty thing, and they call themselves Peters-burgers ! Among us every dog has his own saucer to lap out of."

!^Alexandr seemed to share Yevsay's opinion though he was silent. He went up to the window and looked out upon a view of water-pipes, roofs, and brick walls of houses, black and filthy, and he compared it with what he had seen, just a fortnight before, from the window of his home in the country. His heart sank. - He went out into the street ; all was confusion, every one running in different directions, occupied only with his own affairs, scarcely glancing at those who passed. He remembered the little town which was the capital of his province, where a meeting with any one, whoever it might be, was always interesting in one way or another. Here Ivan Ivanitch would be going to see Piotr Piotrovitch—and every one in the town knows the reason why. Here is Maria Martinova coming home from vespers, and there Afanasy Savitch going out to fish. There a gendarme from the governor's would gallop past like mad for the doctor, and every one knew that Her Excellency's confinement was expected, though in the judgment of the various gossips and old women it was not proper to be aware of this fact too soon. Every one would be asking " boy or girl ?" and the ladies were all making caps worthy to celebrate the occasion. Here Matvai Matvyitch would come out of his house with his thick stick, at six o'clock in the evening, and every one knew that he was going to take his evening constitutional, without which

his digestion would suffer; and that he would infallibly stop at the window of the old councillor, who, they also knew, would be drinking his tea at this hour. If you met any one —no matter who—there would be a bow and a word or two, and even if there is any one you don't salute, at least you know who he is, and where he is going and why, and in his face is written : I too know who you are and where you are going and why. And if it should ever happen that two people meet who don't know each other, directly they see one another, the faces of both assume an expression of inquiry; they stand still and look round twice, and when they get home they describe the dress and appearance of the unknown personage, and conjectures and discussions will follow as to who. he is and where he comes from, and what is his object. But here with scarcely a glance they push along the way as though they were all enemies. ~ To begin with, Alexandr gazed with provincial curiosity at every one he met, and every respectably dressed man he took for either a minister, or an ambassador, or an author, " isn't he/' he thought, " and isn't that one ? " But soon he was weary of this—ministers, ambassadors, authors met him at every step.

He looked at the houses and grew still more gloomy, he

was depressed by the monotonous piles of stone, which

stretch like colossal tombstones one after another in one

unbroken mass. Here the street will end^' and there will

be open space to rest my eyes—he thought—or a hill or

greenness, or a broken-down wall. No, there the stone

ramparts begin again of houses all identical, with four rows

of windows. And that street ended, again there was some-

^ thing to shut one in, another row of the same houses. You

look to the right, to the left—on all sides/nemming you in

like ranks of giants, houses, houses and houses, stone and

stone, all the same and the same again; no freedom, no

; outlet for the eyes ; cramped in on all sides. It seemed as

; though men's thoughts and feelings too must be cramped

\byit.

^^The first impressions of a provincial in Petersburg are disagreeable. It is all strange and depressing to him; no one notices him; he feels lost here; even the novelty, the variety of the crowds fail to please him. His provincial egoism is up in arms against everything he sees here, and

7\

has not seen at home. He grows meditative and is carried back in thought to his own town. What a soothing vision! A house standing alone with sharp-pointed wall and a small avenue of acacias. Against the wall a kind of shed, a pigeon-house—the merchant Izumin is a devoted pigeon fancier; this was his reason for taking the house and building the pigeon-house against the wall; and every morning and evening he stands under the wall in his nightcap and dressing-gown^ a stick in his hand with a rag tied to the end "oTTt, ana whistles and waves the stick in the air. The house is exactly like a lighthouse : on all four sides it is all windows flush with the walls, a house of ancient construction ; it seems as though it were always going to fall down. Next it, is the small gray house of the surgeon spread out in semicircle with two wings like sentry-boxes, and all hidden away in the green foliage; the next house has turned its back on the street, the next is shut in by a mile of fence, from behind which rosy-cheeked apples peep from the trees and tempt the schoolboys. The houses all stand back from the church at a respectful distance, and all round it the fresh grass is springing up, between the tombstones. The Government offices are such that there is no mistake about their being Government offices; no one dare come near them except on business. But here in the capital you cannot distinguish them from private houses, and what's more, shameful to say, they even have shops in the same building. And there in the provincial town you need only walk through two or three streets and you feel the fresh air of the country and the hedges begin and the market-gardens and then open fields of spring corn. And the peace, the unchanging monotony—even in the street and in the people you find this same blessed stagnation ! And all live unconfined, with space to move in ; no one is cooped up; even the cocks and hens can run about in the streets, while the goats and cows nip the grass and the children are flying kites.

It is even more painful for the provincial when he comes to one of those houses with a letter of introduction. He imagines that they will receive him with open arms, that they will make much of him, give him the most comfortable chair, and the best of everything; that they will skilfully sound him as to his favourite dishes; how he will be em-

barrassed by their warmth, and how finally he will throw aside all ceremony and embrace his host and hostess, will call them " thou," as though they had been friends for twenty years; how all would drink together, perhaps sing songs in chorus

When he is there! they hardly look at him, and frowning, excuse themselves on the plea of engagement; if they have a business., then it begins at a fixed hour, and then they do not dine or sup, and of taking " nips " they know nothing —not even vodka and biscuits. The host retreats from his embrace and looks in a strange way at his guest. In the next room he hears the clatter of knives and forks; they should invite him in there, but they try to avoid his skilful

hints Everywhere there are closed doors, everywhere

bells; isn't it pitiful ? and such cold inhospitable faces. But away at home one may venture to walk in; if they have finished dinner, why they will dine again with their guest; the samovar is on the table from morning till night, and there are no bells even in the shops. They embrace, they kiss every one who comes. A neighbour there is really a neighbour, they live hand in hand, and heart in heart; a kinsman is so much a kinsman; he would die for one of his own people—ah ! it is depressing !

Alexandr went as far as the Admiralty Square, and stood there quite overwhelmed. He stopped in rapt enthusiasm before the statue of Peter the Great. He gazed at the Neva and the buildings surrounding it, and his eyes sparkled. He felt suddenly ashamed of his preference for shaky bridges, little gardens and tumble-down fences. He grew happy and lighthearted. Even the bustle and the crowd all took a different significance in his eyes. His aspirations, which had been overclouded for a time by painful impressions, grew bright again; a new life seemed to open its arms to him, and tempted him to the unknown. His heart beat violently. He dreamt of noble effort, of lofty aspirations and stepped proudly along the Nevsky Prospect,

considering himself a citizen of a new world Full

of such dreams, he returned home.

In the evening at eleven o'clock, his uncle sent up to summon him to tea.

"I am only just home from the theatre," said his uncle, lying down on the sofa.

" What a pity you did not tell me sooner, uncle, I would have gone with you."

'' I was in the stalls. Where would you have been, sitting on my knee ? " said Piotr I vanitch. " Go by yourself to-morrow,"

" It's so depressing to be alone in a crowd, uncle, to have no one to share your impressions with."

" And why should you? You will have to learn to think, and to feel, in fact to live alone ; it is necessary now. But you pjLijj&kJx^be suit ably p ressed before you go tO .the tneatre."

Alexandr looked at his clothes and wondered at his uncle's words. " In what way am I unsuitably dressed ? " he thought, " I have a blue coat and blue trousers.

" I have a lot of clothes, uncle,'* he said, " made by

Kcenigstein; he makes for our governor."

j " Never mind; still it will not do; in a day or two I will

I .send you to my own tailorj ) but that's a detail. We have

something more importantio talk about. Tell me, why did

you come here ? "

" I came .... to live here."

" To live ? Well if you understand by that term, to eat, to drink, and to sleep, then it was not worth the trouble of coming so far : you will not be able either to sleep or to eat here as you can there at home; but if you meant something else please explain yourself."

" To enjoy life, I meant to say," said Alexandr, blushing all over; " I was tired of the country—it is always the same and . . . ."

" Ah ! that's another thing ! What, you want to take aflat in the Nevsky Prospect, set up a carrage, make a large circle of acquaintances and have reception-days ? "

"But would not that cost a great deal?" remarked Alexandr naively.

" Your mother writes that she has given you a thousand roubles; that is not much," said Piotr Ivanitch. "An acquaintance of mine came here not long ago, he, too, was tired of the country ; he wanted to enjoy life, so he brought fifty thousand and will receive as much every year. He will certainly enjoy life in Petersburg, but you—no ! you did not come up for that."

" From your words, uncle, it seems to follow that I don't know myself why I came."

" Exactly so; that's well said; that's the truth; only I don't quite approve of it Did you not, when you prepared to come here, put to yourself the question: why am I going ? That would not have been inappropriate."

" Before putting to myself the question, I had the answer ready," replied Alexandr with pride.

" Then why did you not tell it ? Well, why ? "

" I was carried along by an irresistible yearning, by a thirst for noble activity; a longing burned within me to illustrate and to realise . . . ."

Piotr Ivanitch rose a little from the sofa, took his cigar out of his mouth and pricked up his ears.

"To give effect to the aspirations, which surged "

" Don't you write verses ?" asked Piotr Ivanitch suddenly.

" Yes, and prose, too, uncle \ shall I fetch some ? "

"No, no !—some future time; I only asked."

"And why?"

" Because you talk so. . . ."

" Badly ? "

" No—perhaps very well, only strangely."

"Our professor of aesthetics talked like that, and he was considered the most eloquent of the professors," said Alex-andr in confusion. . " What did he talk about in that way ? "

"About his subject."

"Ah!"

" How am I to talk then, uncle?"

" Rather more simply, like everyone else, and not like a lecturer on aesthetics. However, it is impossible for you to change all of a sudden; later on you will see for yourself. You mean to say, it appears, so far as I can recall your University jargon and translate your words, that youj:ame here to make a career and a fortune. . . . Isn't it so ? "

" Yes, uncle, a career."

" And fortune ? " added Piotr Ivanitch; " what is a career without a fortune ? The idea is very fine; only—it was a mistake for you to come."

"Why so? I hardly think you say that from your own experience?" said Alexandr looking around him.

"That's neatly said. Certainly I am well off and my

business is pretty fair. But I only consider—you and I— there's a great difference."

" I never ventured to compare myself with you.'*

" That's not the point, you are perhaps ten times as wise and good as I ... . but your nature, I fancy, is not capable of adapting itself to a new standard, and your standard at home—oh, oh ! You have been petted and spoiled by your mother; how are you to put up with what I put up with ? r You are bound to be a dreamer, and a dreamer is nowhere I at all here; people like us come here to work."

" Perhaps I am fit for work of some sort, if you will give me the benefit of your advice and experience."

" Advise you—I am afraid to do it. I could not answer for your countryman's nature; things would go wrong, and you would reproach me; but as for telling you my opinions —well—I will not refuse, you may listen or not as you please. But no! I don't expect success. You have your own way of looking at life in the country; how are you to work it in ? You country-people are mad over love and friendship and the delights of life and happiness; you imagine that life consists only of this: oh and oh! you weep and sob and make love and do no work .... how am I to break you of all that ? . . . . If s a difficult task."

" I will try, uncle, to adapt myself to the ideas of the time. Already to-day while gazing at the immense edifices, and the ships that bring us gifts from far away lands, I thought of the achievements of humanity in this age, I grasped the significance of this multitude moving in brain-directed activity, and was ready to flow with it."

Piotr Ivanitch during this monologue contracted his brows expressively and looked steadily at his nephew. The latter stopped.

"The fact is simple enough, I fancy," said his uncle; "but these country-people—goodness knows what ideas they take into their heads .... brain-directed activity indeed! Certainly you had done better to remain in the country. You would have had a splendid life there: you would have been the cleverest of all of them, and have been looked on i as a poet and an eloquent talker, you would have believed in eternal and unchanging love and friendship, in the family , and in happiness, you would have married and have reached old age without noticing it, and you would have been in

A COMMON STORY 43

reality happy after your own fashion; but you will not be happy after our fashion; here all these ideas must be turned upside down."

" How, uncle, are love and friendship—these sacred and lofty emotions, not the same here as at home ? "

" We have love and friendship here of course—they are cheap enough to be plentiful everywhere; only it is not the same as those in your home; in time you will see for yourself. . . . But before everything you must forget these sacred and heavenly emotions and look at facts more simply as they are, indeed it would be better, then you will talk more simply too. However, it is not my business. You have come here and will not go back. If you don't find what you looked for, you have only yourself to blame. I will advise you what is good in my opinion and what is bad, and then do as you please. /We will try—perhaps—something may be made of you. Ah! your mother asked me to provide

you with money You understand what I say to you;

don't come to me for money; that always destroys a good understanding between honourable people. However, don't imagine that I have declined to help you; no, if it should come to there being no other resource, then there is no help for it, come to me. Any way, it is better to borrow from an uncle than from a stranger, especially as you would get it without interest. But you ought not to let yourself be driven to this extremity, I will qu ickly find you a place so that you can earn s ome moneyV well, good bye for the pr'WJWlt. CoinG'm again in "the morning, we will talk of what and how to begin."

Alexandr Fedovitch was going to his room.

"Oh , don't you want some supper?" Piotr I vanitch called after him.

n YeSg'uhcle—I should—perhaps."

" I nave nothing to offer you.

Alexandr was TiTfnr "Why this nsffiltrss prnpmal then?" h e tho ught.

"** I fl ohTTiave my meals p repared at home, and the shops ar e closecT dv now/ cont inueg ^TTmcte: •^ " Il e ie irrr tesson fo f you at the very first turn—a ccustom yourself fo"itT "At h6me you go to bed ana get up With the SUn,~eat"and drink when nature bid you; if it is cold, you put on a cap with lappets and no one wants to know anything about it; when

+'

44 A COMMON STORY

it is light, it is. day, when it is dark, it is night. At your home all are asleep, but I am still sitting at work; at the end of the month one has to balance one's accounts. You breathe the fresh air there all the year round, but here even that enjoyment costs money, and the same with everything. It's a complete antipodes! Here they do not even eat supper, especially at their own cost, or at mine either. This, perhaps, will be an advantage to you; you will not toss and groan at night, and I haven't the time to turn you over!"

"That one can easily get accustomed to, uncle."

" Good, if it is so. But with you everything is still in the old style ; you can still I suppose arrive at a friend's at midnight; and they will begin to get supper ready for you directly."

"Why, uncle, I should think you could not find fault

with that in us. The kindheartedness of Russians "

/ il Stop ! what sort of kindheartedness is there in it? You are so bored that you are glad of any creature who turns up:—you are welcome, eat as much as you like, only employ our idleness in some way, help us to kill time, and let us look at you; any way it is something new; and we don't grudge you your entertainment; it costs us nothing here. A poor sort of kindheartedness!"

So Alexandr went to bed and tried to conjecture what sort of a man his uncle was. He remembered the whole conversation; much of it he did not understand, and the rest he did not altogether believe.

" I don't talk properly ! " he thought: " love and friendship are not undying ! surely my uncle must be laughing at me? Can this be the way they live here? What was it Sophia liked so specially in me, but the gift of eloquence ? But is her love really not undying? .... And is it possible they really don't have supper here."

He lay tossing uneasily in his bed for a long time : with his head full of disquieting thoughts, and his stomach empty, he could not get to sleep.

Piotr Ivanitch became every day more contented with his nephew.

" He does not intrude," he said to one of his partners at the factory—"never comes to see me without an invitation ; and when he notices that he is de trop> he goes away

directly; and he does not ask for money; he is a well-behaved boy. He has his peculiarities .... sidles up to kiss you, and talks in a high-flown style; well he will get out of that; and what a good thing it is he does not come to me for everything."

Alexandr considered it his duty to love his uncle, but he could never get used to his character and ways of thinking.

" My uncle seems a good-hearted man," he wrote one I morning to Pospyeloff, "very intelligent, only he is utterly \ prosaic, for ever absorbed in business, in calculations. His soul seems chained to earth and is never lifted up into the pure ether far remote from earthly sordidness, and we shall never, I fancy, be altogether one in heart. When I came here, I imagined that as my uncle he would give me a place in his heart, that in the midst of the cold world here he would cherish me with all the warmth of affection and friendship ; and friendship, you know, is a second providence. But he is nothing else than this world individualised. I expected to spend my time with him, never to be away from him for a minute, but what was my welcome ?—cold advice, which he calls common sense; but I would rather it were not common sense but full of warm, heartfelt interest.. He is not exactly proud, but he is averse to all sincere outbursts of feeling. We do not dine nor sup together, and go out nowhere together. On my arrival he n^ver told me how he was or what he was doing and he never tells me even where he is going and why, who are his acquaintances. . what are his likes and dislikes and how he spends his time. He is never specially angry, nor affectionate, nor sad, nor cheerful. His heart is a stranger to all transport of love and friendship, all yearnings after the sublime. . . . He does not believe in love, &c, says that there is no such thing as happiness, that nobody has guaranteed it to us, and that life is a simple matter, which is divided equally into good and bad, into pleasure, success, health and ease, and then into pain, failure, anxiety, disease and so on; that we ought to look at all this simply, and not to fill our heads with useless matters. And what do you suppose are useless matters ? Why the problems of why we were created and to what we are striving—that that is not our business and that it hinders us from seeing what is before our noses and from minding

our business. He is always talking about business! One sees no difference in him whether he is absorbed in some enjoyment or in prosaic business at his accounts, and at the theatre he is exactly the same; he receives no powerful impression from anything and I think does not care for art; it is foreign to his nature; I fancy he has not even read Pushkin."

Piotr Ivanitch unexpectedly appeared in his nephew's apartment and came upon him writing a letter.

" I came to see how you were settled in here," said his uncle, " and to talk a little of business."

Alexandr jumped up, and quickly covered something with his hand.

" Hide it, hide your secret," said Piotr Ivanitch; " I will turn my back. Well, have you put it away ? But what is it has fallen out ? What is this ? "

"That—uncle—oh! nothing," Alexandr was beginning, but he grew confused and stopped speaking.

"A lock of hair it looks like! Is it really nothing? Come, I have seen one, so show me the other thing you are hiding in your hand."

Alexandr, like a schoolboy caught, unwillingly opened his hand and showed a ring.

"What is this? Where did you get it?" asked Piotr Ivanitch.

"These, uncle, are the material tokens of immaterial relations."

" What—what? Pass me these tokens."

" They are the pledges "

" I suppose you brought them from the country ? "

" From Sophia, uncle, a keepsake at parting."

" So that is what it is. And you brought this 1500 miles with you ? "

The uncle shook his head.

"You would have done better to bring a bag of dried raspberries, that at least you could have sold at a shop, but these pledges . . . ."

He looked, first at the lock of hair then at the ring. He sniffed at the hair contemptuously, but the ring he weighed in his hand. Then he took a sheet of paper from the table, wrapped both the tokens up in it, screwed it all into a compact pellet, and threw it out of window.

A COMMON STORY 47

" Uncle !" screamed Alexandr furiously, seizing his hand but too late; the pellet flew into the corner of the opposite wall, fell towards the canal on the edge of a barge of bricks, jumped off, and leaped into the water.

Alexandr gazed in silence with an expression of bitter reproach at his uncle.

" Uncle!" he repeated.

"What is it?"

" How am I to describe your action?"

" As a throwing out of the window into the canal of some immaterial tokens and various odds and ends of rubbish which there was no need to keep in the room."

" Rubbish—tkat rubbish ? "

" Why, what do you regard it as, a piece of your heart? I came to him about business, and what do I find him busy over, he is sitting thinking about some stuff and nonsense !"

" Does that interfere with business, uncle ? "

" Very much so. Time is slipping away, and you have not so far talked to me of your plans; whether you do want a government clerkship or have you adopted some other occupation ? You haven't said a word to me, and this is all because you have Sophia and her keepsake in your head. There, I do believe you are just writing a letter to her, aren't you now?"

" Yes, I was just beginning."

" But have you written to ynnr rqnthpr ? "

" Not" yet, 1 me ant to tomo rrow7 "

4 'Why to-morrowr* To your mother,to-morrow, but.to Sophia," Whutil you must forget within a month, to-day." 4 *15opEiaT"can T eveflbrget tier?* **

" You will have to. If I had not thrown away your keepsakes what would you have gained, pray ? ; You would have remembered her a month longer for nothing. I did you a double service. In a few years these keepsakes would have reminded you of a folly at which you would blush!"

"Blush at such a pure, such a sacred remembrance? That shows you do not recognise the poetry."

"What poetry is there in what is foolish? Is there poetry for instance in your aunt's letter ? Yellow flowers, a lake, some mystery or other. When I was reading it, it

made me feel sick beyond description ! I was almost blushing, and yet I am not exactly in the habit of blush-ing."

"That's awful—awful, uncle! It must be that you have never loved/'

" I could never bear keepsakes."

" It is a sort of wooden life!" said Alexandr, with great feeling. " It is vegetating, not living ! Love—sacred passion!"

" I know the sacred love you talk about; at your age, you need only see a curl, a slipper, a garter, or touch a hand .... through your whole body you feel a thrill of sacred, sublime love, but let it have its way—and it's

a different matter Love is before you, more's the

pity; you can't run away from it that's certain ; but serious business will run away from you, if you don't devote yourself to it?"

" But is not love a serious business ? "

" No; it is an agreeable distraction, only you must not give yourself up to it too much, or some harm will come of it. That's why I am afraid for you." His uncle shook his head.

" I have almost found you a position; you really do want to get into an office ? " he said.

Alexandr rushed up and kissed his uncle on the cheek.

" He has succeeded at last!" said his uncle, rubbing his cheek. " Why wasn't I on the look-out for it? Well, now listen. Tell me, what do you know, what do you feel yourself fit for ? "

" I know theology, civil, criminal, and international law, and jurisprudence, diplomacy,political economy, philosophy, aesthetics and archaeology."

" Stop, stop! but you know how to write Russian correctly ? At the present moment that is more necessary than all."

" What a question, uncle; do I know how to write Russian!" said Alexandr, running to his bureau, and beginning to take from it various papers, but his uncle meantime picked up a letter from the table and began to read it.

Alexandr returned with his papers to the table, and saw

that his uncle was reading his letter. His papers fell out of his hand.

" What is it you are reading, uncle ? " he said in dismay.

" Why a letter that was lying here; to a friend, it must be. I beg your pardon—I wanted to see how you write."

" And you have read it ? "

" Yes, almost, only two lines more—I shall have done with it directiy; why what was in it ? there are certainly no secrets in it, or it would not have been lying about like this."

" What can you think of me now ? "

" I think that you write fairly, correctly, smoothly."

" Then you cannot have read what is written in it ?" Alexandr asked eagerly.

" No, I fancy I have read all," said Piotr Ivanitch, looking at both pages; " to begin with you describe Petersburg and your impressions, and then me."

" Good God!" exclaimed Alexandr, covering his face with his hands.

" Well, what is it ? what is the matter ? "

" And you say this calmly ? you are not angry ? you don't hate me ? "

" No ! what is there to make a fuss about ? "

" Repeat it, calm me !"

" No, no, no."

" But to read such bitter truths about yourself—and from whom ? from your own nephew !"

" You fancy that you have written the truth ? "

" Oh, uncle!—of course, I was mistaken—I will correct —forgive me."

" Would you like me to dictate what is the truth to you ? "

" If you would be so good."

" Sit down then and write."

Alexandr picked out a sheet of paper, and took up a pen, while Piotr Ivanitch, looking at the letter he had read, dictated :—" Dear friend—have you got it ? "

"Yes."

" Petersburg and my impressions I will not describe to you."

" Describe to you," said Alexandr, writing it down.

"Petersburg has been fully described long ago, and what has not been described you must see for yourself;

D

my impressions will be of no use whatever to you. It is useless to waste time and paper for nothing. I shall do better to describe my uncle, because that is of interest to me personally."

" To me personally," said Alexandr.

" Well, you write here, that I am good-hearted and very intelligent—I may be so, or may not; let us rather take a middle course, write : My uncle is not stupid nor unkind, he wishes me well."

" Uncle! I know how to appreciate and to feel" . . . . said Alexander, and got up to kiss him.

" Although he does not fall upon my neck," continued Piotr Ivanitch. Alexandr, who had not yet reached him, sat down again rather suddenly.

" But he wishes me well, because he has no reason or motive to wish me ill, and because my mother has interceded with him on my behalf, and she was good to him formerly. He says he does not love me—and very reasonably; it is impossible to love any one in a fortnight, and I do not love him yet, even though I maintain that I do."

" How is that possible ? " said Alexandr.

" Write, write. ' But we are beginning to get used to one another. He even says that it is possible to do without love altogether. He does not sit with his arms round me, from morning till evening, because this is quite unnecessary, and he has not the time. * Averse to all outbursts of feeling' —that may stand : that is good. Have you written it ? "

" Yes."

" Well, what have you next ? ' Prosaic'—write it"

While Alexandr was writing, Piotr Ivanitch took from the table a paper of some sort, twisted it up, thrust it in the fire, and lighted a cigar with it, and threw the paper back into the fire and it burnt up.

" My uncle is neither a demon, nor an angel, but just a man like every one else," he dictated, " only not altogether like you and me. He thinks and feels after an earthly fashion, he considers that since we live on the earth, we must not fly off from earth to heaven, where we are not invited for the present, but must busy ourselves with human affairs which are our calling. Therefore he analyses all earthly matters and especially life, as it is, not as we should like it to be. He believes in good and at the same

time in evil, in the noble and in the base. He believes also in love and friendship, only he does not think they have fallen from heaven, but he considers that they came into existence together with men and for men, and that they too ought to be understood, and in fact generally that one ought to look at things steadily, in their actual bearings, and not be carried away God knows where. Among honest men he admits the possibility of a friendliness, which from frequent intercourse and habit turns into friendship. But he considers also that from separation habits lose their strength and people forget one another and that this is by no means a crime. For this reason he is convinced that I shall forget you and you me./ This seems to me—and probably also to you—strange, but he advises us to accustom ourselves to this thought, so that we shall both avo id bein g ^dg£fiixed« As to love this is his view, roughly speaking; he does not believe in eternal and unchanging love, just as he does not believe in ghosts—and he advises us not to believe in it. However, he advises me to think on this subject as little as possible and I advise you the same. It will come, he says, of itself, without any invitation; he says that life does not consist of love only, that like everything else it has its fitting season, but to dream your whole life of one love is absurd. Those who seek it and cannot do without it a minute—live with their hearts at the expense of their heads. My uncle likes to be busy with work, and advises me to do the like and I you; we belong to society, he says, which has need of us; while he is busy, he does not forget his own interests; his work gains money and money brings comfort, which he likes extremely. Moreover, he has perhaps plans in consequence of which I shall not probably be his heir. My uncle is not always thinking of his official I work and of his factory; he knows by heart not only ' Pushkin » —

"You, uncle?" said Alexandr astonished.

" Yes, you will see some day. Write: n

" ¥{e read? in tiyn languages whatpvpr flpp^rc w^rfrhy nf

note in all branches af human knowledge, Joves art, has an

excel lent collection of picture s nf the F urnish srhnn\— that

i£hls rlOBby—o/ten.goes to the f ^^ fy ^ l hi? f u * ; ° n(\j j n_a fuss and fidget, and does not sigh and moan, thinking that this is childish, that one must control oneself, not obtrude

$r1

one's emotions on any one, because nobody cares about them. He does not speak a strange tongue either and he advises me not to, and so do I advise you. Good-bye, write to me rather less often and don't waste time for nothing. Your friend so and so. Now, the day of the month."

" How can I send such a letter ? " said Alexandr, "' write rather less often'—write that to the man who came over a hundred and sixty miles on purpose to say a last good-bye to me! 'I advise you so, and so, and so': he is just as clever as I am, he came out second."

" No matter, send it all the same, perhaps he will learn something from it; it will lead him to several new reflections ; though you have taken your degrees, your education is only just beginning."

" I cannot make up my mind, uncle, to "

" I never interfere in what doesn't concern me, but you yourself asked me to do something for you; well, as you like; I only give you my opinion."

"Forgive me, uncle; I will obey you," said Alexandr, and at once sealed up the letter.

Having sealed up one, he began to look for the other, to Sophia. He looked on the table—not there; under the table—not there either; in the desk—it was not there.

" What are you looking for? " said his uncle. " I am looking for another letter—to Sophia." And his uncle too began to look about. " Where can it be ? " said Piotr Ivanitch, " I hope I did not throw it in the fire."

" Uncle ! what have you done ? you actually lighted your cigar with it!" said Alexandr in great distress, picking up the charred fragments of the letter.

" Is it possible?" cried his uncle, " how did I do that? I did not notice it; only imagine my having burnt such a precious thing. However, do you know what? from one point of view it is positively a good thing."

" Oh, uncle ! good God! not from any point of view can it be a good thing," said Alexandr in despair.

" I assure you it was a good thing; you will not have time to write to her by this post, and by the next you will certainly be in a different mood, you will be busy with your

new work; you will not be at the same stage and in this way you will commit one folly the less."

" What will she think of me ? "

" Why what she likes,,' And I think it will be a gain to her. I suppose you are not going to marry her? She will think you have forgotten her. She will forget you herself and will have the less reason to blush before her future husband, when she assures him that she has never loved any one but him."

" You are a strange man, uncle ! for you there is no such thing as constancy, no sacred vows. Life is so sweet, so full of charm, of subtlety, it is like a smooth, resplendent lake."

" Where yellow flowers grow, I suppose! M put in his uncle.

"Like a lake," continued Alexandr, "it is full of something mysterious, alluring, hiding within it so much."

" Mud, my dear boy." j " W&y do you bring in mud, uncle, why do you destroy and put an end to all pleasure, hope, bliss—why do you look at the dark side ? "

" I look at reality, and I advise you to do the same ;• you will not be taken in then. According to your notions life is sweet in the provinces, where they know nothing about it— there they are not men, but angels: Zayeshaloff for instance —a noble fellow; your auntie—a sublime sensitive spirit, and Sophia, I fancy, is just such a silly creature as your auntie.

" No more, uncle !" said Alexandr driven to fury.

" And still more such idealists as you: they go blindfold through life, groping afteFmicrianging love and friendship. For the hundredth time I say, it was a pity for you to come!"

" Will she assure her husband that she has never loved any one ? " said Alexandr almost to himself.

" Why ! you are back at the same subject again!"

" No, I am convinced that she will straightway with noble frankness give him ray letters and "

" And keepsakes?" said Piotr Ivanitcb.

" Yes, and the tokens of our affection, and will say: Here this was he who first touched the chords of my heart; about whose name they first vibrated."

His uncle's brows began to contract and his eyes opened wide. Alexandr stopped.

" Why did you cease to touch her chords then ? Well my dear boy, your Sophia certainly is a fool, if she commits any folly of that kind ; I suppose she has a mother, or somebody who can prevent her? God knows what she will make her husband suspect; I daresay, the marriage will even be broken off, and why ? because you gathered some yellow flowers together. . . . No, things are not done like that. Well, since you can write in Russian, we will go tomorrow to the office of the department; I have already spoken of you to an old fellow-clerk of mine, now the chief of the department; he told me there was a vacancy; we must not lose time. What is that you are pulling out of that pile of papers ? "

" My university notes. Allow me to read you a few pages from the lectures of Ivan Semenitch about the Art of Greece."

He was already beginning to turn over the pages in haste.

" Oh, please, spare me !" said Piotr Ivanitch frowning. " But what is that ? "

" My dissertations. I should like to show them to my chief; especially one scheme here which I elaborated."

" Ah ! one of those schemes which have been carried out a thousand years ago, or which is impossible and useless to carry out at all; you will never write anything worth having in that way, and you will waste time.

"What? after having heard so many lectures."

" They are of use to you for a time, but now you must see, read, learn and do what you are told."

" How will the chief understand my qualifications ? "

" He will understand them soon enough; he is first rate at understanding. And what kind of post would you like to occupy ? "

" I don't know, uncle, what kind of "

" There are posts of minister," remarked Piotr Ivanitch, "and deputy-ministers, directors, vice-directors, chiefs of departments, branch-chiefs, their assistants, officials of several orders."

Alexandr thought a minute. He was abashed and did not know which to choose.

\S

A COMMON STORY 55

" Well, to begin with the post of a branch-chief would do very well," he said.

" Yes, very well!" repeated Piotr Ivanitch.

"I could see something of the work, uncle, and then in two months or so I might even be a chief of a department."

His uncle pricked up his ears.

" Of course, of course!" he said : " then in three months a director; then in a year a minister; don't you think so ? "

Alexandr blushed and was silent.

" The chief of the department told you, I suppose, what was the post vacant ? " he asked after a pause.

" No," answered his uncle:—" he did not say, but we had better leave it to him; we should find it difficult, you see, to choose, but he will know what to appoint you to. Don't talk to him of the difficulty you feel in choosing a post, and of your schemes not a word. I would not advise you to talk of material tokens to the pretty girls here; they won't know how to take you ! This is too elevated for them; even I hardly fathomed it, and they will make faces at you."

While his uncle was speaking Alexandr was balancing a packet in his hand.

" What have you there ? "

Alexandr had been impatiently expecting this question.

" This—I have long wanted to show you .... poems; you once showed an interest "

" I don't remember it at all; I think I did not show any interest."

" You see, uncle, I regard official life as a dry occupation, in which the soul has no part, but the soul thirsts for self-expression, it thirsts to share with others the overflow of emotions and thoughts which fill it"

" Well, what of it ? " asked his uncle impatiently. \ " I feel an impulse to creative work." 1 "Which means, you would like some other occupation besides official duties—for instance some translation? Well, it's very praiseworthy; what is it to be, literary work?"

" Yes, uncle, I wanted to ask you, if you had a chance of getting anything inserted "

"Are you convinced that you have talent? without it

<\

56 A COMMON STORY

of course you can do hackwork in literature but what is the use of it ? If you have talent, it is a different matter; you can work; you will do much that is worth doing and besides it is capital—it is worth more than your hundred serfs/'

" Do you measure this too in money ? Fame! fame! that is the poet's true reward."

"There is no such thing as fame nowadays. There

is notoriety, but of fame you hear nothing at all, or perhaps

it has taken to appearing in another fp nn; the bette r a

man writes the more money he gets, jllbwever in these

I days* a decent author lives decently, he is not frozen and

\ starved to death in a garret, though people don't run after

\him in the street and point at him with their fingers, as

though he were a clown; they have, learnt that "a poet is

. not a god but a man; that he looks, walks, thinks, and

j does silly things just like other people; why do you look

J like that ? "

" Like other people—rwhat will you say next, uncle ? how can v any one say such things ? A poet is marked off by a special stamp; there are mysterious tokens of the existence in him of higher powers."

" Yes, just as in some others—in the mathematician and the watchmaker or even the manufacturer, like myself. Newton, Gutenberg, Watt, were also endowed with higher powers, like Shakespeare, Dante and the rest. If I could manage by some special process to work our Petersburg pay till china could be made of it better than Saxony or Sevres, do you consider that this would not show the possession of higher powers ? "

" You are mixing up art with manufactures, uncle/' " God forbid! Art is one thing, manufacture is another, but there may be creative genius in one just as much as in the other, and similarly there may not. If there is not, the manufacturer is simply called a manufacturer, and not a creative genius, and the poet too without genius is not a poet, but a rhymer .... Haven't you been told about this at the university? Pray what did you learn l^there ? "

—The uncle began to be vexed with himself for having been led into such an exposition of what he considered commonplace truisms.

" It's like a ' sincere outburst of feeling/ " he reflected. "Show me what have you there?" he demanded; " verses ? "

His uncle took the papers and began to read the first page.

" Whence the cloud of pain and sorrow Swooping sometimes suddenly On the heart with life at conflict/ 1

He began to smoke a cigar and continued :—

" Filling it with passion high.

" Why in time of storm and tempest Doth some gloomy dream of ill, With unfathomable sadness Strike the inmost spirit chill.

" Of the distant skies the silence Fills us now with dread and fright-

j»

" 'Dread' and ' fright* one and the same thing."

" I gaze upwards ; the moon soundless,"

"That's not so bad and not good!" he said as he finished it. However others have begun worse than that; you can try a little, write, work at it if you have the inclination; possibly talent may show itself; then it will be a different matter."

Alexandr was very downcast. He had expected a very different criticism. He was a little consoled by reflecting that his uncle was a cold man almost'destitute of soul.

" Here is a translation from Schiller/ 1 he said.

" Well; I will look at it. Have you learnt foreign languages too then ? "

" I know French, German, and a little English."

" I congratulate you, you should have told me so before; there's a good deal to be made of you. You talked to me long ago about political economy, philosophy, archaeology, God knows what all. But of the most important thing not a word—misplaced modesty. I will get you some literary work at once."

" Really, uncle ? how good you are!—allow me to embrace you."

" Wait till I have got it for you."

44 Will you not show any of my compositions to my future chief to give him an idea of me?"

" No, it is not necessary: if there is any need, you show it yourself, but perhaps it will not be needed. Do you make I me a present of your dissertations and compositions ? "

" Make you a present of them ?—by all means, uncle," said Alexandr, who was rather flattered by this request on the part of his uncle. " Would you not like me to make you an index of all the articles in chronological order ? "

"No, there's no need of that .. . Thanks for the present. Yevsay! take these papers to Vassily."

" Why to Vassily ? surely to your study."

" He asked me for some paper to paste on something. ,,

"What, uncle?" cried Alexandr in horror, clutching the heap back again.

44 You gave them to me you know, and what does it matter to you what use I make of your present ? "

44 You are quite ruthless !" he groaned in despair, clasping his manuscripts in both hands to his heart.

44 Alexandr, listen to me," said his uncle, taking the manuscript from him:— 44 you will not have to blush hereafter and you will thank me for it"

Alexandr let the manuscripts drop out of his hands.

44 There, take them away, Yevsay," said Piotr Ivanitch. 44 Well now your room is tidy and nice, there is no rubbish lying about; it will depend on you whether it is filled with worthless litter or with something sensible. Let us go to the factory for a walk, to get a breath of fresh air and to see how they are working."

One morning Piotr Ivanitch took his nephew to the office of the department, and while he himself was talking to his friend the chief of the department, Alexandr began to make acquaintance with this new world. He was absorbed in dreaming of schemes and was cudgelling his brains to think what political question would be put for him to solve, and meanwhile he stood and looked about.

44 Exactly like my uncle's factory!" he decided at last: 44 Just as there one overseer takes a piece of the soft stuff, throws it into a machine, turns it once, twice, three times— and lo and behold it comes out a cone, an oval, or a semicircle ; then he passes it to another, who bakes it in the fire, a third gilds it, a fourth engraves it and it comes out a cup,

or a vase, or a saucer. And here; a casual petitioner comes in, almost crawling, and with a pitiful smile hands in a paper —an overseer takes it, only just runs his pen across it, and hands it to another, who throws it into a mass of thousands of other papers—but it is not lost; stamped with a number it passes unharmed through twenty hands, multiplying and begetting more of its own kind. At last when it is covered with the dust of ages, they disturb it and deliberate over it And every day, every hour, to-day, to-morrow and for all time the bureaucratic machine works smoothly, without hitch or pause, as though not made of men, but as though it were made of wheels and springs. But where is the intelligence animating and moving this edifice of papers ? " thought Alexandr: " in the books, in the papers themselves or in the heads of these men ? "

And what faces he saw here; such faces seem not to be met in the street walking in the light of heaven: here one fancies they were born, and reared to manhood in their places and here they will die. Adouev looked attentively at the chief of the department; like Jupiter the Thunderer, he opens his mouth—and a Mercury runs up with a copper number on his breast; he holds out his hand with some paper; ten hands are stretched out to take it

" Ivan Ivanitch! " said he.

Ivan Ivanitch jumped up from a table, ran up to Jupiter and was beside him in the twinkling of an eye. - And Alexandr felt overawed, though he could not himself have said why.

" Give me my snuff-box!"

With both hands he held the open snuff-box to him in a servile manner.

" Now examine him 1" said the chief pointing to Adouev.

11 So this is who is to examine me!" thought Adouev, looking at the yellow face and threadbare elbows of Ivan Ivanitch. "Is it possible that this man could settle questions of State?"

" Have you a good hand ? " asked Ivan Ivanitch.

" A good hand ? "

" Yes, a good handwriting. I will trouble you to copy that paper."

Alexandr was surprised at this request; but he did so. Ivan Ivanitch made a grimace when he looked at what he had written.

" A poor handwriting," he said to the chief of the department The latter looked at it.

" Yes, it's not good; he can't write fair copies. Well let him for a time write out absence permits, and then when he is a little used to it, set him to writing forms for deeds; perhaps he will do; he has been educated at a university."

Very soon Adouev too became one of the springs of the machine. He wrote, wrote, wrote unendingly, and began to wonder how it was possible to do anything else in the morning; but when he remembered his dissertations, he blushed.

" Uncle!" he thought; " in one thing you were right, cruelly right; can it be so in everything ? can I have been mistaken in those inspired thoughts kept to myself alone and that warm trust in love, in friendship, and in men, and in myself? What is life then ? "

He bent over his papers and scribbled all the more zealously, but tears were glistening on his eyelashes.

"Fortune certainly smiles upon you,"said Piotr Ivanitch to his nephew; "I was in an office a whole year to begin with without salary, but you have been put on the upper scale of salary at once; why it's 750 roubles and with the Christmas extras it will be 1000 roubles. It's splendid for the first start! The chief of the department praises you; only he says you are careless; sometimes you don't put in your stops, and sometimes you will forget to write a synopsis of the paper. Pray get out of that way; the chief thing is to pay attention to what is before your eyes, and don't go flying off aloft."

The uncle pointed upwards with his hand. From this time he behaved more affectionately to his nephew.

" What a splendid fellow my head-clerk is, uncle !" said Alexandr one day.

" And how do you know that ? "

" I have made friends with him. Such an elevated soul, such a pure noble turn of mind! and with his sub too; he is a man, I think, of firm will, of iron character."

" You have had time already to make friends with him ? "

" Yes, indeed."

"Did not your head-clerk invite you to go to see him on Thursdays ? "

" Yes, indeed; every Thursday. I fancy he feels a special attraction to me."

" And he asked his sub to lend him money ? "

"Yes, uncle, a trifle. I gave him twenty-five roubles which I had with me; he asked for eighty more."

" You have given it him already! Ah!" said his uncle with vexation:—" I am partly to blame in the matter, for not having warned you beforehand; but I thought that you weren't simple to such a point as to lend money after only a fortnight's acquaintance. There is no help for it now, we will divide the guilt; for twelve and a half roubles you may count on me."

" Why, uncle, surely he will return it ? "

"You needn't reckon on that! I know him; I lost 100 roubles over him when I was in that office. He borrows from every one. Now, if he asks you again, you tell him that I beg him to remember his debt to me—he will soon stop ! and don't go to see him."

" Why, uncle ? "

" He's a gambler. He will sit you down with two more fine fellows like himself, and they will play into each other's hands and leave you without a penny."

" A gambler!" said Alexandr in amazement, " is it possible ? He seems so inclined to sincere outbursts."

" But you tell him, as though incidentally in conversation, that I have taken all your money to take care of it, and you will see whether he will be so inclined to sincere outbursts, and whether he will ever invite you to come to him on Thursdays."

Alexandr grew thoughtful, his uncle shook his head.

" And you imagined that they were angels sitting by you there 1 Sincere outbursts, special attraction, indeed! So it seems it has never struck you to reflect whether they might not be scoundrels ? It was a pity for you to come !" he said; " certainly, it was a pity 1"

One day Alexandr was only just awake when Yevsay gave him a large parcel with a note from his uncle.

" At last here is some literary employment for you," was written on the letter. "I met an acquaintance of mine, a journalist yesterday; he has sent you some work on trial."

Alexandr's hands trembled with pleasure when he broke the seal of the parcel. It was a German handwriting.

" What is it—prose ? " he said, " about what ? "

And he read written above in pencil.

" On manures, an article for our column on agriculture. You are requested to return it as soon as possible."

A long while he sat gloomily before the article, then slowly, with a sigh, he took his pen and began to translate it. In two days the article was ready and despatched.

" Capital, capital! " said Piotr Ivanitch a few days later. " The editor was very pleased with it, only he thinks the style is a little too ornate; but one can't expect everything at first. He wants to make your acquaintance. Call on him to-morrow at seven in the evening; he will have another article for you by then."

" On the same subject again, uncle ? "

" No; on something different; he did tell me but I have forgotten—oh! yes—on potato starch. You must have been born, Alexandr, with a silver spoon in your mouth. I begin at last to suspect that something will be made of you; soon perhaps I shall stop saying to you, * Why did you come ?' A month has not gone by, and already good luck is being showered upon you from all sides. 1000 roubles from your office, and the editor offers ioo roubles a month for sixty-four pages of print; that makes 2200 roubles you know! No, I did not begin like that! " he said, knitting his eyebrows a little. " Write and tell your mother you are provided for and how. I will answer her too, I will tell her that in return for her kindness to me, I have done all I could for you."

" Mamma will be—very grateful to you, uncle; and I too," said Alexandr with a sigh, but this time he did not throw himself on to his uncle's neck.

CHAPTER III

More than two years had passed by. Who would have recognised our provincial in the fashionably-dressed and easy-mannered young man ? He had changed very much, and grown manly. The roundness of the lines of his boyish face, the softness and delicacy of his skin, the down on his

chin had all disappeared. The bashful shyness and graceful awkwardness of his movement had gone. His features had become mature and grown into a physiognomy and the physiognomy showed character. The lilies and roses had disappeared as though under a light covering of sunburn. The down on his face had turned into slight whiskers. His light hesitating step had become a firm even gait. His voice had gained some bass notes. From the roughly outlined sketch had come a finished portrait. The boy had turned into a man. In his eyes was the light of self-reliance and confidence. The ecstatic expression of Alexandr's face in former days was toned down by a slight shade of melancholy : the first sign of doubt having stolen into his heart, and perhaps the only consequence of his uncle's lessons and the merciless analysis to which he exposed everything which presented itself to Alexandras eyes or heart. Alexandr had at last acquired tact, which is the power of adapting oneself to men. He did not throw himself into everybody's arms especially after the man, inclined to sincere outbursts, in spite of his uncle's warnings, had cleared him out at cards on two occasions, and the man of firm character and iron will had borrowed a considerable sum of money from him. Other people too and other incidents worked in the same direction. At one place he noticed how they laughed in their sleeves at his youthful enthusiasm, and nicknamed him the romantic. At another they hardly paid him any attention, because no one could hope to gain or lose anything from him. He did not give dinners, did not keep a carriage, and did not play high. At first Alexandr's heart was sick and sore at these discrepancies between his rose-coloured dreams and the reality. It never entered his head to ask himself: But what have I done that is distinctive, in what am I distinguished from the common herd ? Where are my merits and why ought they to notice me? But meanwhile his vanity suffered

Then he began by degrees to admit the thought that in life clearly all was not roses, but that there were also thorns which sometimes prick a little, but not seriously and not as his uncle made out. And then he began to learn to control himself, he did not so often betray his emotions and impulses and more rarely spoke in a high-flown language, at least before strangers.

But all the same, to the no small regret of Piotr Ivanitch, he was still far from coldly analysing into their first elements all that moves and agitates the heart of man. As for dragging to light all the mysteries and enigmas of the heart, he did not like even to listen to it.

Piotr Ivanitch would give him something of a lesson in the morning: Alexandr would listen, be perplexed or deeply thoughtful, and then he would go out somewhere in the evening and come home a different man. The charm and intoxication of the ball-room, the strains of music, the bare shoulders, the ardent glances, the smiles of rosy lips would not let him sleep all night. Visions floated before him of the waist which he had pressed in his arms, of the prolonged languorous gaze which had been cast on him at parting, of the feverish breath which had ravished him in the waltz, or the conversation at the window whispered under cover of the murmur of the mazurka, when the eyes spoke so sincerely, while the tongue was talking of no matter what. And his heart beat; he clutched at his pillow convulsively and lay tossing for hours in his bed.

u Where is love? Oh, love, I thirst for thee !" he said, " and will love come soon ? when will these divine moments come to me, the delicious torture, the shudder of bliss, tears " and so forth.

The next day he would make his appearance at his uncle's.

" What a party it was, uncle, last night at the Zareysky's!" he said, absorbed in memories of the ball.

" Was it a pleasant one ? "

" Oh, heavenly."

" A pretty good supper ? "

" I did not have any."

" How was that? No supper at your age when you can get it! But I see you have adopted our ways in good earnest, even more than you need to. Was everything successful then ? the dress, the lighting ? "

" Yes."

" Nice people ? *

" Oh, yes ! very nice. Such eyes, such shoulders!"

" Were there many pretty girls ? "

" Yes, indeed ; but it's a pity they are all so much alike. What one does or says in any special circumstances,

you notice the next repeats exactly the same, just as though it were a lesson learnt by heart. There was one—not altogether like the rest .... but otherwise there was no sign of independence nor character. Their movements, their looks—all exactly alike: you hear no original thought or flash of feeling—it is all disguised and covered up under the same external polish. It seems as though nothing would make them open out Is it possible that they will always be locked up and will never come out to any one ? Can it be that they wear stays that will always stifle the sigh of love and the groan of the tortured heart ? Can no liberty be given to emotion ? "

" Everything will come out to their husbands, though if they think like you—at least from what you say—a good many will remain old maids to the end of time. There are some idiotic enough to let what ought to be hidden and stilled come out before it is time—um! they pay for it afterwards in tears; it's a bad bargain !"