Fifty-Two Stories

IN A COUNTRY HOUSE

PAVEL ILYICH RASHEVICH walked about, stepping lightly on the floor covered with Ukrainian rugs, and casting a long, narrow shadow on the wall and ceiling, while his guest, Meier, the acting examining magistrate, sat on the Turkish divan, one leg tucked under, smoking and listening. The clock already showed eleven, and there were sounds of the table being set in the room next to the study.

“As you like, sir,” Rashevich was saying, “from the point of view of brotherhood, equality, and all that, the swineherd Mitka may be as much of a human being as Goethe or Frederick the Great; but put yourself on a scientific footing, have the courage to look facts straight in the face, and it will be obvious to you that blue blood is not a prejudice, not an old wives’ tale. Blue blood, my dear fellow, has a natural-historical justification, and to deny it, in my opinion, is as strange as to deny that a deer has antlers. We must reckon with the facts! You’re a jurist and haven’t sampled any other studies than the humanities, and you may still deceive yourself with illusions concerning equality, brotherhood, and all that. I’m an incorrigible Darwinist, and for me words like race, aristocratism, noble blood are not empty sounds.”

Rashevich was excited and spoke with feeling. His eyes flashed, his pince-nez refused to stay on his nose, he twitched his shoulders nervously, winked, and at the word “Darwinist” glanced dashingly in the mirror and stroked his gray beard with both hands. He was dressed in a very short, much-worn jacket and narrow trousers; his quick movements, dashing air, and this curtailed jacket somehow did not suit him; and it seemed that his big, long-haired, fine-looking head, reminiscent of a bishop or a venerable poet, had been attached to the body of a tall, lean, and affected adolescent. When he spread his legs wide, his long shadow resembled a pair of scissors.

Generally he liked to talk, and it always seemed to him that he was saying something new and original. In the presence of Meier, he felt an extraordinary inspiration and influx of thoughts. He found the magistrate sympathetic and was inspired by his youth, health, excellent manners, seriousness, and above all by his cordial attitude towards himself and his family. Generally acquaintances did not like Rashevich, avoided him, and, as he knew, told of him that he had supposedly driven his wife into the grave by his talk, and behind his back called him a hate-monger and a toad. Only Meier, a new and unprejudiced man, visited him frequently and willingly, and even said somewhere that Rashevich and his daughters were the only people in the district with whom he felt as warm as with his own family. Rashevich also liked him, because he was a young man who might make a suitable match for Zhenya, his older daughter.

And now, enjoying his thoughts and the sound of his own voice, and glancing with pleasure at the moderately plump, handsomely cropped, respectable Meier, Rashevich dreamed of how he would set his daughter up with a good man, and how the cares of the estate would then pass to his son-in-law. Unpleasant cares! The interest to the bank had not been paid for the last two periods, and over two thousand were owing in various fines and penalties!

“For me it is not subject to doubt,” Rashevich went on, becoming more and more inspired, “that if some Richard the Lionhearted or Frederick Barbarossa, say, is brave and magnanimous, those qualities will be inherited by his son along with the bumps and convolutions of the brain. And if this bravery and magnanimity are protected in his son by means of upbringing and exercise, and if he marries a princess who is also brave and magnanimous, those qualities will be passed on to the grandson, and so on, until they become a particularity of the species and are transmitted organically, so to speak, in flesh and blood. Owing to the strict sexual selection by means of which noble families instinctively protected themselves from unequal marriages and high-born young men did not marry the devil knows who, lofty inner qualities were passed on from generation to generation in all their purity, were protected, and in the course of time, by being exercised, became more perfect and lofty. Whatever good there is in mankind we owe precisely to nature, to the regular natural-historical, purposeful course of things, which carefully, over the centuries, has separated blue blood from common blood. Yes, my dear man! It was not some unwashed commoner, some scullery maid’s son, who gave us literature, science, the arts, law, the notions of honor, duty…Mankind owes all this exclusively to blue blood, and in that sense, from the natural-historical point of view, a bad Sobakevich,¹ solely by being of blue blood, is more useful and lofty than the best of merchants, even one who builds fifteen museums. Say what you like, sir! And if I don’t offer my hand to an unwashed commoner, a scullery maid’s son, and don’t seat him at my table, I thereby protect what is best on earth and fulfill one of the highest designs of Mother Nature, who leads us to perfection…”

Rashevich paused, stroking his beard with both hands; on the wall his shadow, which looked like a pair of scissors, also paused.

“Take our Mother Russia,” he went on, putting his hands in his pockets and standing now on his heels, now on his toes. “Who are her best people? Take our first-class artists, writers, composers…Who are they? All of them, my dear, were representatives of blue blood. Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Turgenev, Goncharov, Tolstoy—they were no sexton’s kids!”

“Goncharov² was a merchant,” said Meier.

“What of it! Exceptions only prove the rule. And concerning Goncharov’s genius we could also have a hot debate. But let’s drop the names and get back to the facts. For instance, what will you say, my dear sir, of this eloquent fact: as soon as a commoner gets where he wasn’t allowed before—to high society, the sciences, literature, local government, the courts—notice, nature herself stands up for the highest human rights and is the first to declare war on this rabble. Indeed, as soon as the commoner gets into the wrong sled, he begins to mope, to languish, to lose his mind and degenerate, and you’ll never meet so many neurasthenics, psychological cripples, consumptives, and other wimps as among these sweethearts. They die like flies in autumn. If it weren’t for this saving degeneration, there would long since have been no stone left upon stone of our civilization, the unwashed would have gobbled everything up. Kindly tell me: What has this infestation given us so far? What have the unwashed brought with them?” Rashevich made a mysterious, frightened face and went on: “Never before have our science and literature been on such a low level as now! The modern-day ones, my dear sir, have no ideas, no ideals, and all their dealings are pervaded by one spirit: to rip off as much as possible and take the last shirt from whoever they can. All these modern-day ones, who pass themselves off as progressive and honest, can be bought for a rouble, and the contemporary intellectual has this special quality, that when you talk to him, you must keep a strong grip on your pocket, or else he’ll snatch your wallet.” Rashevich winked and burst out laughing. “By God, he will!” he went on in a gleefully high voice. “And morals? What about morals?” Rashevich glanced at the door. “Nowadays nobody’s surprised when a wife robs and abandons her husband—it’s nothing, mere trifles! Nowadays, my dear man, a twelve-year-old girl aims at having a lover, and all these amateur theatricals and literary evenings have been invented only to make it easier to hook up with a moneybag and be kept by him…Mothers sell their daughters, and husbands are asked outright about their wives’ going price, and can even haggle over it, my dear fellow…”

Meier, who had been silent all the while and sat motionless, suddenly got up from the divan and looked at his watch.

“Sorry, Pavel Ilyich,” he said, “it’s time I went home.”

But Pavel Ilyich, who had not yet finished talking, embraced him and, forcing him to sit back down on the divan, swore he would not let him go without supper. And Meier again sat and listened, but now kept glancing at Rashevich in perplexity and apprehension, as if he were only now beginning to understand him. Red blotches appeared on his face. And when the maid finally came in and said that the young ladies invited them to supper, he sighed with relief and was the first to leave the study.

At the table in the next room sat Rashevich’s daughters, Zhenya and Iraida, twenty-four and twenty-two years old, both dark-eyed, very pale, of identical height. Zhenya with her hair down, and Iraida with a tall hairdo. Before eating they both drank a glass of bitter liqueur, looking as if they had drunk it accidentally, for the first time in their life, and they both became embarrassed and burst into laughter.

“Don’t be mischievous, girls,” said Rashevich.

Zhenya and Iraida spoke French with each other, and Russian with their father and the guest. Interrupting each other and mixing Russian with French, they quickly began telling how, in former years, they used to leave for boarding school precisely then, in August, and what a happy time it was. Now there was nowhere to go, and they had to live there in the country without leaving all summer and winter. What boredom!

“Don’t be mischievous, girls,” Rashevich repeated.

He wanted to talk himself. When others talked in his presence, he experienced a feeling similar to jealousy.

“So it goes, my dear fellow…,” he began again, looking affectionately at the magistrate. “In our kindness and simplicity, and also for fear of being suspected of backwardness, we fraternize, forgive me, with all sorts of trash, we preach brotherhood and equality with moneybags and tavernkeepers; but if we cared to think about it, we would see to what degree this kindness of ours is criminal. The result of it is that our civilization is hanging by a hair. My dear fellow! That to which our ancestors devoted centuries will be desecrated and destroyed today or tomorrow by these latter-day Huns…”

After supper they all went to the drawing room. Zhenya and Iraida lit the candles on the grand piano, prepared the scores…but their father went on talking, and there was no knowing when he would stop. They already looked with anguish and annoyance at their egoist-father, for whom the pleasure of babbling and showing off his intelligence was obviously more valuable and important than his daughters’ happiness. Meier was the only young man who frequented their house, frequented it—this they knew—for the sake of their sweet feminine company, but the irrepressible old man took him over and would not let him go even a step away.

“Just as the western knights repelled the attacks of the Mongols, so we, before it’s too late, should rally and attack our enemy with a united front,” Rashevich went on in a preacherly tone, raising his right arm. “Let me appear before the commoner not as Pavel Ilyich, but as the terrible and mighty Richard the Lionhearted. Let us cease all this delicacy with them—enough! Let us decide all together that as soon as a commoner comes near us, we will hurl words of contempt right in his mug: ‘Hands off! Know your place!’ Right in his mug!” Rashevich went on in ecstasy, jabbing in front of him with a bent finger. “In his mug! In his mug!”

“I can’t do it,” Meier said, looking away.

“Why not?” Rashevich asked briskly, looking forward to an interesting and prolonged argument. “Why not?”

“Because I’m a commoner myself.”

Having said that, Meier turned red, his neck even swelled, and tears even glistened in his eyes.

“My father was a simple worker,” he added in a rough, jerky voice, “but I see nothing wrong with it.”

Rashevich was terribly embarrassed, stunned, and, as if he had been caught redhanded, looked at Meier in perplexity, not knowing what to say. Zhenya and Iraida blushed and bent over their music; they were ashamed of their tactless father. A moment passed in silence, and the shame was becoming unbearable, when all at once—morbidly, stiffly, and inappropriately—words rang out in the air:

“Yes, I’m a commoner and proud of it.”

Then Meier, awkwardly stumbling into the furniture, took his leave and quickly went to the front hall, though the horses had not yet been brought.

“You’ll be driving in the dark tonight,” Rashevich muttered, going after him. “The moon rises late now.”

They both stood on the porch in the dark waiting for the horses to be brought. It was chilly.

“A star just fell…,” Meier said, wrapping himself in his coat.

“A lot of them fall in August.”

When the horses were brought, Rashevich looked attentively at the sky and said with a sigh:

“A phenomenon worthy of the pen of Flammarion…”³

Having seen his guest off, he strolled through the garden, gesticulating in the darkness and not wishing to believe that such a strange, stupid misunderstanding had just occurred. He was ashamed and annoyed with himself. First, it had been extremely imprudent and tactless on his part to bring up this cursed question of blue blood without having first found out whom he was dealing with; something similar had happened to him before; once on a train he had started to denounce the Germans, and it had turned out that all his fellow travelers were German. Second, he sensed that Meier would never call on them again. These cultivated ones who rise from the common people are painfully touchy, stubborn, and unforgiving.

“Not nice, not nice…,” murmured Rashevich, spitting. He felt embarrassed and disgusted, as if he had eaten soap. “No, not nice!”

From the garden, through the window, he could see Zhenya by the piano in the drawing room, her hair down, extremely pale, frightened, talking very, very quickly about something…Iraida paced up and down, deep in thought; but then she, too, began talking, also quickly, with an indignant look. They talked at the same time. Not a word could be heard, but Rashevich could guess what they were talking about. Zhenya was probably complaining that her father frightened off all decent people with his talk, and today had deprived them of the only acquaintance who might have been a suitor, and now the poor young man had no place in the whole district where he could find rest for his soul. And Iraida, judging by the way she threw up her arms in despair, was probably talking on the theme of their boring life, their ruined youth…

On coming to his room, Rashevich sat on his bed and slowly began to undress. He was in a depressed state of mind, and was tormented by that same feeling of having eaten soap. He was ashamed. He undressed, looked at his long, sinewy, old man’s legs, and recalled that in the district he was known as “the toad,” and that he had been ashamed after every long conversation. In some sort of fatal way it came about that he would begin softly, gently, with good intentions, calling himself an old student, an idealist, a Don Quixote, but, unbeknownst to himself, would gradually go on to abuse and slander and, most surprising of all, would quite sincerely criticize science, art, and morals, though it was already twenty years since he had read a single book or gone further than the provincial capital, and in fact he had no idea of what was happening in the wide world. If he sat down to write anything, be it only a congratulatory letter, abuse would appear in the letter as well. And all this was strange, because in fact he was a sentimental, tearful man. Was it some demon sitting in him, who hated and slandered in him against his will?

“Not nice…,” he sighed, lying under the blanket. “Not nice!”

His daughters also did not sleep. He heard loud laughter and shouting, as if someone were being pursued: it was Zhenya having hysterics. A little later Iraida also began to sob. A barefoot maid ran down the corridor several times…

“Lord, what a mishap…,” Rashevich muttered, sighing and tossing from side to side. “Not nice!”

In sleep he was oppressed by a nightmare. He dreamed that he was standing in the middle of the room, naked, tall as a giraffe, jabbing his finger in front of him and saying:

“In the mug! In the mug! In the mug!”

He woke up in fright and first of all remembered that a misunderstanding had occurred the day before, and that Meier, of course, would not call on them any more. He also remembered that he had to pay the interest to the bank, marry off his daughters, had to eat and drink, and that illness, old age, troubles were near, it would soon be winter, there was no firewood…

It was already past nine in the morning. Rashevich slowly got dressed, had tea, and ate two big slices of bread with butter. His daughters did not come out for tea; they did not want to meet him, and that offended him. He lay on the divan in his study for a while, then sat down at the desk and started writing a letter to his daughters. His hand trembled, and his eyes itched. He wrote that he was already old, nobody needed him, and that nobody loved him, and he asked his daughters to forget him and, when he died, to bury him in a simple pine coffin, without ceremony, or send his body to the anatomical theater in Kharkov. He sensed that his every line breathed out spite and histrionics, but he could no longer stop and kept on writing, writing…

“The toad!” suddenly reached him from the neighboring room; it was the voice of his older daughter, an indignant, rasping voice. “The toad!”

“The toad!” the younger repeated like an echo. “The toad!”

1894