YOUTH

By Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi

Translated by C. J. Hogarth

I. WHAT I CONSIDER TO HAVE BEEN THE BEGINNING OF MY YOUTH

I have said that my friendship with Dimitri opened up for me a new viewof my life and of its aim and relations. The essence of that view layin the conviction that the destiny of man is to strive for moralimprovement, and that such improvement is at once easy, possible, andlasting. Hitherto, however, I had found pleasure only in the new ideaswhich I discovered to arise from that conviction, and in the forming ofbrilliant plans for a moral, active future, while all the time my lifehad been continuing along its old petty, muddled, pleasure-seekingcourse, and the same virtuous thoughts which I and my adored friendDimitri ("my own marvellous Mitia, " as I used to call him to myself ina whisper) had been wont to exchange with one another still pleased myintellect, but left my sensibility untouched. Nevertheless there camea moment when those thoughts swept into my head with a sudden freshnessand force of moral revelation which left me aghast at the amount oftime which I had been wasting, and made me feel as though I must atonce--that very second--apply those thoughts to life, with the firmintention of never again changing them. 

It is from that moment that I date the beginning of my youth. 

I was then nearly sixteen. Tutors still attended to give me lessons, St. Jerome still acted as general supervisor of my education, and, willy-nilly, I was being prepared for the University. In addition to mystudies, my occupations included certain vague dreamings and ponderings, a number of gymnastic exercises to make myself the finest athlete in theworld, a good deal of aimless, thoughtless wandering through the roomsof the house (but more especially along the maidservants' corridor), andmuch looking at myself in the mirror. From the latter, however, I alwaysturned away with a vague feeling of depression, almost of repulsion. Notonly did I feel sure that my exterior was ugly, but I could derive nocomfort from any of the usual consolations under such circumstances. Icould not say, for instance, that I had at least an expressive, clever, or refined face, for there was nothing whatever expressive about it. Itsfeatures were of the most humdrum, dull, and unbecoming type, with smallgrey eyes which seemed to me, whenever I regarded them in the mirror, to be stupid rather than clever. Of manly bearing I possessed even less, since, although I was not exactly small of stature, and had, moreover, plenty of strength for my years, every feature in my face was of themeek, sleepy-looking, indefinite type. Even refinement was lackingin it, since, on the contrary, it precisely resembled that of asimple-looking moujik, while I also had the same big hands and feet ashe. At the time, all this seemed to me very shameful. 

II. SPRINGTIME

Easter of the year when I entered the University fell late in April, sothat the examinations were fixed for St. Thomas's Week, [Easter week. ]and I had to spend Good Friday in fasting and finally getting myselfready for the ordeal. 

Following upon wet snow (the kind of stuff which Karl Ivanitch used todescribe as "a child following, its father"), the weather had for threedays been bright and mild and still. Not a clot of snow was now to beseen in the streets, and the dirty slush had given place to wet, shiningpavements and coursing rivulets. The last icicles on the roofs were fastmelting in the sunshine, buds were swelling on the trees in the littlegarden, the path leading across the courtyard to the stables was softinstead of being a frozen ridge of mud, and mossy grass was showinggreen between the stones around the entrance-steps. It was just thatparticular time in spring when the season exercises the strongestinfluence upon the human soul--when clear sunlight illuminateseverything, yet sheds no warmth, when rivulets run trickling under one'sfeet, when the air is charged with an odorous freshness, and when thebright blue sky is streaked with long, transparent clouds. 

For some reason or another the influence of this early stage in thebirth of spring always seems to me more perceptible and more impressivein a great town than in the country. One sees less, but one feels more. I was standing near the window--through the double frames of which themorning sun was throwing its mote-flecked beams upon the floor of whatseemed to me my intolerably wearisome schoolroom--and working out along algebraical equation on the blackboard. In one hand I was holding aragged, long-suffering "Algebra" and in the other a small piece of chalkwhich had already besmeared my hands, my face, and the elbows of myjacket. Nicola, clad in an apron, and with his sleeves rolled up, waspicking out the putty from the window-frames with a pair of nippers, andunfastening the screws. The window looked out upon the little garden. Atlength his occupation and the noise which he was making over it arrestedmy attention. At the moment I was in a very cross, dissatisfied frame ofmind, for nothing seemed to be going right with me. I had made a mistakeat the very beginning of my algebra, and so should have to work it outagain; twice I had let the chalk drop. I was conscious that my hands andface were whitened all over; the sponge had rolled away into a corner;and the noise of Nicola's operations was fast getting on my nerves. Ihad a feeling as though I wanted to fly into a temper and grumble atsome one, so I threw down chalk and "Algebra" alike, and began topace the room. Then suddenly I remembered that to-day we were to go toconfession, and that therefore I must refrain from doing anythingwrong. Next, with equal suddenness I relapsed into an extraordinarilygoodhumoured frame of mind, and walked across to Nicola. 

"Let me help you, Nicola, " I said, trying to speak as pleasantly as Ipossibly could. The idea that I was performing a meritorious action inthus suppressing my ill-temper and offering to help him increased mygood-humour all the more. 

By this time the putty had been chipped out, and the screws removed, yet, though Nicola pulled with might and main at the cross-piece, thewindow-frame refused to budge. 

"If it comes out as soon as he and I begin to pull at it together, " Ithought, "it will be rather a shame, as then I shall have nothing moreof the kind to do to-day. "

Suddenly the frame yielded a little at one side, and came out. 

"Where shall I put it?" I said. 

"Let ME see to it, if you please, " replied Nicola, evidently surprisedas well as, seemingly, not over-pleased at my zeal. "We must not leaveit here, but carry it away to the lumber-room, where I keep all theframes stored and numbered. "

"Oh, but I can manage it, " I said as I lifted it up. I verily believethat if the lumber-room had been a couple of versts away, and the frametwice as heavy as it was, I should have been the more pleased. I feltas though I wanted to tire myself out in performing this service forNicola. When I returned to the room the bricks and screws had beenreplaced on the windowsill, and Nicola was sweeping the debris, as wellas a few torpid flies, out of the open window. The fresh, fragrant airwas rushing into and filling all the room, while with it came also thedull murmur of the city and the twittering of sparrows in the garden. Everything was in brilliant light, the room looked cheerful, and agentle spring breeze was stirring Nicola's hair and the leaves of my"Algebra. " Approaching the window, I sat down upon the sill, turned myeyes downwards towards the garden, and fell into a brown study. 

Something new to me, something extraordinarily potent and unfamiliar, had suddenly invaded my soul. The wet ground on which, here and there, a few yellowish stalks and blades of bright-green grass were to be seen;the little rivulets glittering in the sunshine, and sweeping clods ofearth and tiny chips of wood along with them; the reddish twigs of thelilac, with their swelling buds, which nodded just beneath the window;the fussy twitterings of birds as they fluttered in the bush below; theblackened fence shining wet from the snow which had lately melted offit; and, most of all, the raw, odorous air and radiant sunlight--allspoke to me, clearly and unmistakably, of something new and beautiful, of something which, though I cannot repeat it here as it was thenexpressed to me, I will try to reproduce so far as I understood it. Everything spoke to me of beauty, happiness, and virtue--as three thingswhich were both easy and possible for me--and said that no one of themcould exist without the other two, since beauty, happiness, and virtuewere one. "How did I never come to understand that before?" I cried tomyself. "How did I ever manage to be so wicked? Oh, but how good, howhappy, I could be--nay, I WILL be--in the future! At once, at once--yes, this very minute--I will become another being, and begin to livedifferently!" For all that, I continued sitting on the window-sill, continued merely dreaming, and doing nothing. Have you ever, on asummer's day, gone to bed in dull, rainy weather, and, waking justat sunset, opened your eyes and seen through the square space of thewindow--the space where the linen blind is blowing up and down, andbeating its rod upon the window-sill--the rain-soaked, shadowy, purplevista of an avenue of lime-trees, with a damp garden path lit up by theclear, slanting beams of the sun, and then suddenly heard the joyoussounds of bird life in the garden, and seen insects flying to and fro atthe open window, and glittering in the sunlight, and smelt the fragranceof the rain-washed air, and thought to yourself, "Am I not ashamed to belying in bed on such an evening as this?" and, leaping joyously to yourfeet, gone out into the garden and revelled in all that welter oflife? If you have, then you can imagine for yourself the overpoweringsensation which was then possessing me. 

III. DREAMS

"To-day I will make my confession and purge myself of every sin, " Ithought to myself. "Nor will I ever commit another one. " At this point Irecalled all the peccadilloes which most troubled my conscience. "I willgo to church regularly every Sunday, as well as read the Gospel at theclose of every hour throughout the day. What is more, I will set aside, out of the cheque which I shall receive each month after I have goneto the University, two-and-a-half roubles" (a tenth of my monthlyallowance) "for people who are poor but not exactly beggars, yet withoutletting any one know anything about it. Yes, I will begin to look outfor people like that--orphans or old women--at once, yet never tell asoul what I am doing for them. 

"Also, I will have a room here of my very own (St. Jerome's, probably), and look after it myself, and keep it perfectly clean. I will never letany one do anything for me, for every one is just a human being likemyself. Likewise I will walk every day, not drive, to the University. Even if some one gives me a drozhki [Russian phaeton. ] I will sellit, and devote the money to the poor. Everything I will do exactly andalways" (what that "always" meant I could not possibly have said, but atleast I had a vivid consciousness of its connoting some kind ofprudent, moral, and irreproachable life). "I will get up all my lecturesthoroughly, and go over all the subjects beforehand, so that at theend of my first course I may come out top and write a thesis. During mysecond course also I will get up everything beforehand, so that I maysoon be transferred to the third course, and at eighteen come out top inthe examinations, and receive two gold medals, and go on to be Master ofArts, and Doctor, and the first scholar in Europe. Yes, in all Europe Imean to be the first scholar. --Well, what next?" I asked myself at thispoint. Suddenly it struck me that dreams of this sort were a form ofpride--a sin which I should have to confess to the priest that veryevening, so I returned to the original thread of my meditations. "When getting up my lectures I will go to the Vorobievi Gori, [SparrowHills--a public park near Moscow. ] and choose some spot under a tree, and read my lectures over there. Sometimes I will take with me somethingto eat--cheese or a pie from Pedotti's, or something of the kind. Afterthat I will sleep a little, and then read some good book or other, orelse draw pictures or play on some instrument (certainly I must learn toplay the flute). Perhaps SHE too will be walking on the Vorobievi Gori, and will approach me one day and say, 'Who are you?' and I shall look ather, oh, so sadly, and say that I am the son of a priest, and that I amhappy only when I am there alone, quite alone. Then she will give me herhand, and say something to me, and sit down beside me. So every day weshall go to the same spot, and be friends together, and I shall kissher. But no! That would not be right! On the contrary, from this dayforward I never mean to look at a woman again. Never, never again do Imean to walk with a girl, nor even to go near one if I can help it. Yet, of course, in three years' time, when I have come of age, I shallmarry. Also, I mean to take as much exercise as ever I can, and to dogymnastics every day, so that, when I have turned twenty-five, I shallbe stronger even than Rappo. On my first day's training I mean to holdout half a pood [The Pood = 40 Russian pounds. ] at arm's length forfive minutes, and the next day twenty-one pounds, and the third daytwenty-two pounds, and so on, until at last I can hold out four poodsin each hand, and be stronger even than a porter. Then, if ever any oneshould try to insult me or should begin to speak disrespectfully of HER, I shall take him so, by the front of his coat, and lift him up an arshin[The arshin = 2 feet 3 inches. ] or two with one hand, and just hold himthere, so that he may feel my strength and cease from his conduct. Yetthat too would not be right. No, no, it would not matter; I should nothurt him, merely show him that I--"

Let no one blame me because the dreams of my youth were as foolish asthose of my childhood and boyhood. I am sure that, even if it be my fateto live to extreme old age and to continue my story with the years, I, an old man of seventy, shall be found dreaming dreams just as impossibleand childish as those I am dreaming now. I shall be dreaming of somelovely Maria who loves me, the toothless old man, as she might love aMazeppa; of some imbecile son who, through some extraordinary chance, has suddenly become a minister of state; of my suddenly receiving awindfall of a million of roubles. I am sure that there exists no humanbeing, no human age, to whom or to which that gracious, consolatorypower of dreaming is totally a stranger. Yet, save for the one generalfeature of magic and impossibility, the dreams of each human being, ofeach age of man, have their own distinguishing characteristics. At theperiod upon which I look as having marked the close of my boyhood andthe beginning of my youth, four leading sentiments formed the basisof my dreams. The first of those sentiments was love for HER--for animaginary woman whom I always pictured the same in my dreams, and whom Isomehow expected to meet some day and somewhere. This she of mine had alittle of Sonetchka in her, a little of Masha as Masha could look whenshe stood washing linen over the clothes-tub, and a little of a certainwoman with pearls round her fair white neck whom I had once seen long, long ago at a theatre, in a box below our own. My second sentiment was acraving for love. I wanted every one to know me and to love me. I wantedto be able to utter my name--Nicola Irtenieff--and at once to see everyone thunderstruck at it, and come crowding round me and thanking me forsomething or another, I hardly knew what. My third sentiment wasthe expectation of some extraordinary, glorious happiness that wasimpending--some happiness so strong and assured as to verge uponecstasy. Indeed, so firmly persuaded was I that very, very soon someunexpected chance would suddenly make me the richest and most famousman in the world that I lived in constant, tremulous expectation of thismagic good fortune befalling me. I was always thinking to myselfthat "IT is beginning, " and that I should go on thereafter to attaineverything that a man could wish for. Consequently, I was forever hurrying from place to place, in the belief that "IT" must be"beginning" just where I happened not to be. Lastly, my fourth andprincipal sentiment of all was abhorrence of myself, mingled withregret--yet a regret so blended with the certain expectation ofhappiness to which I have referred that it had in it nothing of sorrow. It seemed to me that it would be so easy and natural for me to tearmyself away from my past and to remake it--to forget all that had been, and to begin my life, with all its relations, anew--that the past nevertroubled me, never clung to me at all. I even found a certain pleasurein detesting the past, and in seeing it in a darker light than the trueone. This note of regret and of a curious longing for perfection werethe chief mental impressions which I gathered from that new stage of mygrowth--impressions which imparted new principles to my view of myself, of men, and of God's world. O good and consoling voice, which in laterdays, in sorrowful days when my soul yielded silently to the sway oflife's falseness and depravity, so often raised a sudden, boldprotest against all iniquity, as well as mercilessly exposed thepast, commanded, nay, compelled, me to love only the pure vista of thepresent, and promised me all that was fair and happy in the future! Ogood and consoling voice! Surely the day will never come when you aresilent?

IV. OUR FAMILY CIRCLE

PAPA was seldom at home that spring. Yet, whenever he was so, he seemedextraordinarily cheerful as he either strummed his favourite pieces onthe piano or looked roguishly at us and made jokes about us all, notexcluding even Mimi. For instance, he would say that the Tsarevitchhimself had seen Mimi at the rink, and fallen so much in love with herthat he had presented a petition to the Synod for divorce; or elsethat I had been granted an appointment as secretary to the Austrianambassador--a piece of news which he imparted to us with a perfectlygrave face. Next, he would frighten Katenka with some spiders (of whichshe was very much afraid), engage in an animated conversation with ourfriends Dubkoff and Nechludoff, and tell us and our guests, over andover again, his plans for the year. Although these plans changed almostfrom day to day, and were for ever contradicting one another, theyseemed so attractive that we were always glad to listen to them, andLubotshka, in particular, would glue her eyes to his face, so as not tolose a single word. One day his plan would be that he should leave mybrother and myself at the University, and go and live with Lubotshkain Italy for two years. Next, the plan would be that he should buy anestate on the south coast of the Crimea, and take us for an annual visitthere; next, that we should migrate en masse to St. Petersburg; and soforth. Yet, in addition to this unusual cheerfulness of his, anotherchange had come over him of late--a change which greatly surprisedme. This was that he had had some fashionable clothes made--anolive-coloured frockcoat, smart trousers with straps at the sides, and along wadded greatcoat which fitted him to perfection. Often, too, therewas a delightful smell of scent about him when he came home from aparty--more especially when he had been to see a lady of whom Mimi neverspoke but with a sigh and a face that seemed to say: "Poor orphans! Howdreadful! It is a good thing that SHE is gone now!" and so on, andso on. From Nicola (for Papa never spoke to us of his gambling) I hadlearnt that he (Papa) had been very fortunate in play that winter, andso had won an extraordinary amount of money, all of which he hadplaced in the bank after vowing that he would play no more that spring. Evidently, it was his fear of being unable to resist again doing so thatwas rendering him anxious to leave for the country as soon as possible. Indeed, he ended by deciding not to wait until I had entered theUniversity, but to take the girls to Petrovskoe immediately afterEaster, and to leave Woloda and myself to follow them at a later season. 

All that winter, until the opening of spring, Woloda had beeninseparable from Dubkoff, while at the same time the pair of them hadcooled greatly towards Dimitri. Their chief amusements (so I gatheredfrom conversations overheard) were continual drinking of champagne, sledge-driving past the windows of a lady with whom both of themappeared to be in love, and dancing with her--not at children's parties, either, but at real balls! It was this last fact which, despite our lovefor one another, placed a vast gulf between Woloda and myself. We feltthat the distance between a boy still taking lessons under a tutor anda man who danced at real, grown-up balls was too great to allow of theirexchanging mutual ideas. Katenka, too, seemed grown-up now, and readinnumerable novels; so that the idea that she would some day be gettingmarried no longer seemed to me a joke. Yet, though she and Woloda werethus grown-up, they never made friends with one another, but, on thecontrary, seemed to cherish a mutual contempt. In general, when Katenkawas at home alone, nothing but novels amused her, and they but slightly;but as soon as ever a visitor of the opposite sex called, she at oncegrew lively and amiable, and used her eyes for saying things which Icould not then understand. It was only later, when she one day informedme in conversation that the only thing a girl was allowed to indulgein was coquetry--coquetry of the eyes, I mean--that I understood thosestrange contortions of her features which to every one else had seemed amatter for no surprise at all. Lubotshka also had begun to wear whatwas almost a long dress--a dress which almost concealed her goose-shapedfeet; yet she still remained as ready a weeper as ever. She dreamednow of marrying, not a hussar, but a singer or an instrumentalist, andaccordingly applied herself to her music with greater diligence thanever. St. Jerome, who knew that he was going to remain with us onlyuntil my examinations were over, and so had obtained for himself a newpost in the family of some count or another, now looked with contemptupon the members of our household. He stayed indoors very little, tookto smoking cigarettes (then all the rage), and was for ever whistlinglively tunes on the edge of a card. Mimi daily grew more and moredespondent, as though, now that we were beginning to grow up, she lookedfor nothing good from any one or anything. 

When, on the day of which I am speaking, I went in to luncheon I foundonly Mimi, Katenka, Lubotshka, and St. Jerome in the dining-room. Papawas away, and Woloda in his own room, doing some preparation work forhis examinations in company with a party of his comrades: wherefore hehad requested that lunch should be sent to him there. Of late, Mimi hadusually taken the head of the table, and as none of us had any respectfor her, luncheon had lost most of its refinement and charm. That isto say, the meal was no longer what it had been in Mamma's or ourgrandmother's time, namely, a kind of rite which brought all the familytogether at a given hour and divided the day into two halves. We allowedourselves to come in as late as the second course, to drink wine intumblers (St. Jerome himself set us the example), to roll about on ourchairs, to depart without saying grace, and so on. In fact, luncheon hadceased to be a family ceremony. In the old days at Petrovskoe, every onehad been used to wash and dress for the meal, and then to repair to thedrawing-room as the appointed hour (two o'clock) drew near, and passthe time of waiting in lively conversation. Just as the clock in theservants' hall was beginning to whirr before striking the hour, Fokawould enter with noiseless footsteps, and, throwing his napkin over hisarm and assuming a dignified, rather severe expression, would say inloud, measured tones: "Luncheon is ready!" Thereupon, with pleased, cheerful faces, we would form a procession--the elders going first andthe juniors following, and, with much rustling of starched petticoatsand subdued creaking of boots and shoes--would proceed to thedining-room, where, still talking in undertones, the company would seatthemselves in their accustomed places. Or, again, at Moscow, we wouldall of us be standing before the table ready-laid in the hall, talkingquietly among ourselves as we waited for our grandmother, whom thebutler, Gabriel, had gone to acquaint with the fact that luncheon wasready. Suddenly the door would open, there would come the faint swishof a dress and the sound of footsteps, and our grandmother--dressed in amob-cap trimmed with a quaint old lilac bow, and wearing either a smileor a severe expression on her face according as the state of her healthinclined her--would issue from her room. Gabriel would hasten to precedeher to her arm-chair, the other chairs would make a scraping sound, and, with a feeling as though a cold shiver (the precursor of appetite)were running down one's back, one would seize upon one's damp, starchednapkin, nibble a morsel or two of bread, and, rubbing one's hands softlyunder the table, gaze with eager, radiant impatience at the steamingplates of soup which the butler was beginning to dispense in order ofranks and ages or according to the favour of our grandmother. 

On the present occasion, however, I was conscious of neither excitementnor pleasure when I went in to luncheon. Even the mingled chatter ofMimi, the girls, and St. Jerome about the horrible boots of our Russiantutor, the pleated dresses worn by the young Princesses Kornakoff, andso forth (chatter which at any other time would have filled me witha sincerity of contempt which I should have been at no pains toconceal--at all events so far as Lubotshka and Katenka were concerned), failed to shake the benevolent frame of mind into which I had fallen. Iwas unusually good-humoured that day, and listened to everything witha smile and a studied air of kindness. Even when I asked for the kvas Idid so politely, while I lost not a moment in agreeing with St. Jeromewhen he told me that it was undoubtedly more correct to say "Je peux"than "Je puis. " Yet, I must confess to a certain disappointment atfinding that no one paid any particular attention to my politeness andgood-humour. After luncheon, Lubotshka showed me a paper on whichshe had written down a list of her sins: upon which I observed that, although the idea was excellent so far as it went, it would be stillbetter for her to write down her sins on her SOUL--"a very differentmatter. "

"Why is it 'a very different matter'?" asked Lubotshka. 

"Never mind: that is all right; you do not understand me, " and I wentupstairs to my room, telling St. Jerome that I was going to work, but inreality purposing to occupy the hour and a half before confession timein writing down a list of my daily tasks and duties which should last meall my life, together with a statement of my life's aim, and the rulesby which I meant unswervingly to be guided. 

V. MY RULES

I TOOK some sheets of paper, and tried, first of all, to make a list ofmy tasks and duties for the coming year. The paper needed ruling, but, as I could not find the ruler, I had to use a Latin dictionary instead. The result was that, when I had drawn the pen along the edge of thedictionary and removed the latter, I found that, in place of a line, Ihad only made an oblong smudge on the paper, since the dictionary wasnot long enough to reach across it, and the pen had slipped round thesoft, yielding corner of the book. Thereupon I took another piece ofpaper, and, by carefully manipulating the dictionary, contrived torule what at least RESEMBLED lines. Dividing my duties into threesections--my duties to myself, my duties to my neighbour, and my dutiesto God--I started to indite a list of the first of those sections, butthey seemed to me so numerous, and therefore requiring to be dividedinto so many species and subdivisions, that I thought I had better firstof all write down the heading of "Rules of My Life" before proceeding totheir detailed inscription. Accordingly, I proceeded to write "Rules ofMy Life" on the outside of the six sheets of paper which I had made intoa sort of folio, but the words came out in such a crooked and unevenscrawl that for long I sat debating the question, "Shall I writethem again?"--for long, sat in agonised contemplation of the raggedhandwriting and disfigured title-page. Why was it that all the beautyand clarity which my soul then contained came out so misshapenlyon paper (as in life itself) just when I was wishing to apply thosequalities to what I was thinking at the moment?

"The priest is here, so please come downstairs and hear his directions, "said Nicola as he entered. 

Hurriedly concealing my folio under the table-cloth, I looked at myselfin the mirror, combed my hair upwards (I imagined this to give me apensive air), and descended to the divannaia, [Room with divans, orante-room] where the table stood covered with a cloth and had an ikonand candles placed upon it. Papa entered just as I did, but by anotherdoor: whereupon the priest--a grey-headed old monk with a severe, elderly face--blessed him, and Papa kissed his small, squat, wizenedhand. I did the same. 

"Go and call Woldemar, " said Papa. "Where is he? Wait a minute, though. Perhaps he is preparing for the Communion at the University?"

"No, he is with the Prince, " said Katenka, and glanced at Lubotshka. Suddenly the latter blushed for some reason or another, and thenfrowned. Finally, pretending that she was not well, she left the room, and I followed her. In the drawing-room she halted, and began to pencilsomething fresh on her paper of peccadilloes. 

"Well, what new sin have you gone and committed?" I asked. 

"Nothing, " she replied with another blush. All at once we heardDimitri's voice raised in the hall as he took his leave of Woloda. 

"It seems to me you are always experiencing some new temptation, " saidKatenka, who had entered the room behind us, and now stood looking atLubotshka. 

What was the matter with my sister I could not conceive, but she wasnow so agitated that the tears were starting from her eyes. Finally herconfusion grew uncontrollable, and vented itself in rage against bothherself and Katenka, who appeared to be teasing her. 

"Any one can see that you are a FOREIGNER!" she cried (nothing offendedKatenka so much as to be called by that term, which is why Lubotshkaused it). "Just because I have the secret of which you know, " she wenton, with anger ringing through her tone, "you purposely go and upset me!Please do understand that it is no joking matter. "

"Do you know what she has gone and written on her paper, Nicolinka?"cried Katenka, much infuriated by the term "foreigner. " "She has writtendown that--"

"Oh, I never could have believed that you could be so cruel!" exclaimedLubotshka, now bursting into open sobbing as she moved away from us. "You chose that moment on purpose! You spend your whole time in tryingto make me sin! I'll never go to YOU again for sympathy and advice!"

VI. CONFESSION

With these and other disjointed impressions in my mind, I returned tothe divannaia. As soon as every one had reassembled, the priest roseand prepared to read the prayer before confession. The instant thatthe silence was broken by the stern, expressive voice of the monk ashe recited the prayer--and more especially when he addressed to usthe words: "Reveal thou all thy sins without shame, concealment, orextenuation, and let thy soul be cleansed before God: for if thouconcealest aught, then great will be thy sin"--the same sensation ofreverent awe came over me as I had felt during the morning. I even tooka certain pleasure in recognising this condition of mine, and strove topreserve it, not only by restraining all other thoughts from enteringmy brain, but also by consciously exerting myself to feel no othersensation than this same one of reverence. 

Papa was the first to go to confession. He remained a long, long time inthe room which had belonged to our grandmother, and during that timethe rest of us kept silence in the divannaia, or only whispered to oneanother on the subject of who should precede whom. At length, the voiceof the priest again reading the prayer sounded from the doorway, andthen Papa's footsteps. The door creaked as he came out, coughing andholding one shoulder higher than the other, in his usual way, and forthe moment he did not look at any of us. 

"YOU go now, Luba, " he said presently, as he gave her cheek amischievous pinch. "Mind you tell him everything. You are my greatestsinner, you know. "

Lubotshka went red and pale by turns, took her memorandum paper out ofher apron, replaced it, and finally moved away towards the doorway withher head sunk between her shoulders as though she expected to receivea blow upon it from above. She was not long gone, and when she returnedher shoulders were shaking with sobs. 

At length--next after the excellent Katenka (who came out of the doorwaywith a smile on her face)--my turn arrived. I entered the dimly-lightedroom with the same vague feeling of awe, the same conscious eagerness toarouse that feeling more and more in my soul, that had possessed me upto the present moment. The priest, standing in front of a reading-desk, slowly turned his face to me. 

I was not more than five minutes in the room, but came out from it happyand (so I persuaded myself) entirely cleansed--a new, a morally rebornindividual. Despite the fact that the old surroundings of my life nowstruck me as unfamiliar (even though the rooms, the furniture, and myown figure--would to heavens that I could have changed my outer man forthe better in the same way that I believed myself to have changedmy inner I--were the same as before), I remained in that comfortableattitude of mine until the very moment of bedtime. 

Yet, no sooner had I begun to grow drowsy with the conning over of mysins than in a flash I recollected a particularly shameful sin whichI had suppressed at confession time. Instantly the words of the prayerbefore confession came back to my memory and began sounding in my ears. My peace was gone for ever. "For if thou concealest aught, then greatwill be thy sin. " Each time that the phrase recurred to me I saw myselfa sinner for whom no punishment was adequate. Long did I toss from sideto side as I considered my position, while expecting every moment tobe visited with the divine wrath--to be struck with sudden death, perhaps!--an insupportable thought! Then suddenly the reassuring thoughtoccurred to me: "Why should I not drive out to the monastery when themorning comes, and see the priest again, and make a second confession?"Thereafter I grew calmer. 

VII. THE EXPEDITION TO THE MONASTERY

Several times that night I woke in terror at the thought that I mightbe oversleeping myself, and by six o'clock was out of bed, although thedawn was hardly peeping in at the window. I put on my clothes and boots(all of which were lying tumbled and unbrushed beside the bed, sinceNicola, of course had not been in yet to tidy them up), and, without aprayer said or my face washed, emerged, for the first time in my life, into the street ALONE. 

Over the way, behind the green roof of a large building, the dim, colddawn was beginning to blush red. The keen frost of the spring morningwhich had stiffened the pools and mud and made them crackle under myfeet now nipped my face and hands also. Not a cab was to be seen, thoughI had counted upon one to make the journey out and home the quicker. Only a file of waggons was rumbling along the Arbat Prospect, and acouple of bricklayers talking noisily together as they strode along thepavement. However, after walking a verst or so I began to meet men andwomen taking baskets to market or going with empty barrels to fetch theday's water supply; until at length, at the cross streets near the ArbatGate, where a pieman had set up his stall and a baker was just openinghis shop, I espied an old cabman shaking himself after indulging in anap on the box of his be-scratched old blue-painted, hobble-de-hoy wreckof a drozhki. He seemed barely awake as he asked twenty copecks as thefare to the monastery and back, but came to himself a moment afterwards, just as I was about to get in, and, touching up his horse with the spareend of the reins, started to drive off and leave me. "My horse wantsfeeding, " he growled, "I can't take you, barin. [Sir]"

With some difficulty and a promise of FORTY copecks I persuaded him tostop. He eyed me narrowly as he pulled up, but nevertheless said: "Verywell. Get in, barin. " I must confess that I had some qualms lest heshould drive me to a quiet corner somewhere, and then rob me, but Icaught hold of the collar of his ragged driving-coat, close to where hiswrinkled neck showed sadly lean above his hunched-up back, and climbedon to the blue-painted, curved, rickety scat. As we set off alongVozdvizhenka Street, I noticed that the back of the drozhki was coveredwith a strip of the same greenish material as that of which his coat wasmade. For some reason or another this reassured me, and I no longer feltnervous of being taken to a quiet spot and robbed. 

The sun had risen to a good height, and was gilding the cupolas of thechurches, when we arrived at the monastery. In the shade the frost hadnot yet given, but in the open roadway muddy rivulets of water werecoursing along, and it was through fast-thawing mire that the horse wentclip-clopping his way. Alighting, and entering the monastery grounds, Iinquired of the first monk whom I met where I could find the priest whomI was seeking. 

"His cell is over there, " replied the monk as he stopped a moment andpointed towards a little building up to which a flight of steps led. 

"I respectfully thank you, " I said, and then fell to wondering what allthe monks (who at that moment began to come filing out of the church)must be thinking of me as they glanced in my direction. I was neither agrown-up nor a child, while my face was unwashed, my hair unbrushed, my clothes tumbled, and my boots unblacked and muddy. To what classof persons were the brethren assigning me--for they stared at me hardenough? Nevertheless I proceeded in the direction which the young priesthad pointed out to me. 

An old man with bushy grey eyebrows and a black cassock met me on thenarrow path to the cells, and asked me what I wanted. For a brief momentI felt inclined to say "Nothing, " and then run back to the drozhki anddrive away home; but, for all its beetling brows, the face of the oldman inspired confidence, and I merely said that I wished to see thepriest (whom I named). 

"Very well, young sir; I will take you to him, " said the old man as heturned round. Clearly he had guessed my errand at a stroke. "The fatheris at matins at this moment, but he will soon be back, " and, openinga door, the old man led me through a neat hall and corridor, all linedwith clean matting, to a cell. 

"Please to wait here, " he added, and then, with a kind, reassuringglance, departed. 

The little room in which I found myself was of the smallest possibledimensions, but extremely neat and clean. Its furniture only consistedof a small table (covered with a cloth, and placed between two equallysmall casement-windows, in which stood two pots of geraniums), a standof ikons, with a lamp suspended in front of them, a bench, and twochairs. In one corner hung a wall clock, with little flowers painted onits dial, and brass weights to its chains, while upon two nails driveninto a screen (which, fastened to the ceiling with whitewashed pegs, probably concealed the bed) hung a couple of cassocks. The windowslooked out upon a whitewashed wall, about two arshins distant, and inthe space between them there grew a small lilac-bush. 

Not a sound penetrated from without, and in the stillness the measured, friendly stroke of the clock's pendulum seemed to beat quite loudly. The instant that I found myself alone in this calm retreat all otherthoughts and recollections left my head as completely as though they hadnever been there, and I subsided into an inexpressibly pleasing kind oftorpor. The rusty alpaca cassocks with their frayed linings, theworn black leather bindings of the books with their metal clasps, thedull-green plants with their carefully watered leaves and soil, and, above all, the abrupt, regular beat of the pendulum, all spoke to meintimately of some new life hitherto unknown to me--a life of unity andprayer, of calm, restful happiness. 

"The months, the years, may pass, " I thought to myself, "but he remainsalone--always at peace, always knowing that his conscience is purebefore God, that his prayer will be heard by Him. " For fully halfan hour I sat on that chair, trying not to move, not even to breatheloudly, for fear I should mar the harmony of the sounds which weretelling me so much, and ever the pendulum continued to beat thesame--now a little louder to the right, now a little softer to the left. 

VIII. THE SECOND CONFESSION

Suddenly the sound of the priest's footsteps roused me from thisreverie. 

"Good morning to you, " he said as he smoothed his grey hair with hishand. "What can I do for you?"

I besought him to give me his blessing, and then kissed his small, wizened hand with great fervour. After I had explained to him my errandhe said nothing, but moved away towards the ikons, and began to read theexhortation: whereupon I overcame my shame, and told him all that was inmy heart. Finally he laid his hands upon my head, and pronounced inhis even, resonant voice the words: "My son, may the blessing ofOur Heavenly Father be upon thee, and may He always preserve thee infaithfulness, loving-kindness, and meekness. Amen. "

I was entirely happy. Tears of joy coursed down my face as I kissed thehem of his cassock and then raised my head again. The face of thepriest expressed perfect tranquillity. So keenly did I feel the joy ofreconciliation that, fearing in any way to dispel it, I took hasty leaveof him, and, without looking to one side of me or the other (in orderthat my attention might not be distracted), left the grounds andre-entered the rickety, battered drozhki. Yet the joltings of thevehicle and the variety of objects which flitted past my eyes soondissipated that feeling, and I became filled with nothing but the ideathat the priest must have thought me the finest-spirited young man hehad ever met, or ever would meet, in the whole of his life. Indeed, Ireflected, there could not be many such as myself--of that I felt sure, and the conviction produced in me the kind of complacency which cravesfor self-communication to another. I had a great desire to unbosommyself to some one, and as there was no one else to speak to, Iaddressed myself to the cabman. 

"Was I very long gone?" I asked him. 

"No, not very long, " he replied. He seemed to have grown more cheerfulunder the influence of the sunshine. "Yet now it is a good while past myhorse's feeding-time. You see, I am a night cabman. "

"Well, I only seemed to myself to be about a minute, " I went on. "Do youknow what I went there for?" I added, changing my seat to the well ofthe drozhki, so as to be nearer the driver. 

"What business is it of mine? I drive a fare where he tells me to go, "he replied. 

"Yes, but, all the same, what do you think I went there for?" Ipersisted. 

"I expect some one you know is going to be buried there, so you went tosee about a plot for the grave. "

"No, no, my friend. Still, DO you know what I went there for?"

"No, of course I cannot tell, barin, " he repeated. 

His voice seemed to me so kind that I decided to edify him by relatingthe cause of my expedition, and even telling him of the feeling which Ihad experienced. 

"Shall I tell you?" I said. "Well, you see, "--and I told him all, aswell as inflicted upon him a description of my fine sentiments. To thisday I blush at the recollection. 

"Well, well!" said the cabman non-committally, and for a long whileafterwards he remained silent and motionless, except that at intervalshe adjusted the skirt of his coat each time that it was jerked frombeneath his leg by the joltings of his huge boot on the drozhki's step. I felt sure that he must be thinking of me even as the priest had done. That is to say, that he must be thinking that no such fine-spiritedyoung man existed in the world as I. Suddenly he shot at me:

"I tell you what, barin. You ought to keep God's affairs to yourself. "

"What?" I said. 

"Those affairs of yours--they are God's business, " he repeated, mumblingthe words with his toothless lips. 

"No, he has not understood me, " I thought to myself, and said no more tohim till we reached home. 

Although it was not my original sense of reconciliation and reverence, but only a sort of complacency at having experienced such a sense, that lasted in me during the drive home (and that, too, despite thedistraction of the crowds of people who now thronged the sunlit streetsin every direction), I had no sooner reached home than even my spuriouscomplacency was shattered, for I found that I had not the forty copeckswherewith to pay the cabman! To the butler, Gabriel, I already oweda small debt, and he refused to lend me any more. Seeing me twice runacross the courtyard in quest of the money, the cabman must have divinedthe reason, for, leaping from his drozhki, he--notwithstanding that hehad seemed so kind--began to bawl aloud (with an evident desire to punchmy head) that people who do not pay for their cab-rides are swindlers. 

None of my family were yet out of bed, so that, except for the servants, there was no one from whom to borrow the forty copecks. At length, on mymost sacred, sacred word of honour to repay (a word to which, as I couldsee from his face, he did not altogether trust), Basil so far yielded tohis fondness for me and his remembrance of the many services I had donehim as to pay the cabman. Thus all my beautiful feelings ended in smoke. When I went upstairs to dress for church and go to Communion with therest I found that my new clothes had not yet come home, and so I couldnot wear them. Then I sinned headlong. Donning my other suit, I wentto Communion in a sad state of mental perturbation, and filled withcomplete distrust of all my finer impulses. 

IX. HOW I PREPARED MYSELF FOR THE EXAMINATIONS

On the Thursday in Easter week Papa, my sister, Katenka, and Mimi wentaway into the country, and no one remained in my grandmother's greathouse but Woloda, St. Jerome, and myself. The frame of mind which Ihad experienced on the day of my confession and during my subsequentexpedition to the monastery had now completely passed away, and leftbehind it only a dim, though pleasing, memory which daily became moreand more submerged by the impressions of this emancipated existence. 

The folio endorsed "Rules of My Life" lay concealed beneath a pile ofschool-books. Although the idea of the possibility of framing rules, forevery occasion in my life and always letting myself be guided bythem still pleased me (since it appeared an idea at once simple andmagnificent, and I was determined to make practical application of it), I seemed somehow to have forgotten to put it into practice at once, andkept deferring doing so until such and such a moment. At the same time, I took pleasure in the thought that every idea which now entered myhead could be allotted precisely to one or other of my three sections oftasks and duties--those for or to God, those for or to my neighbour, andthose for or to myself. "I can always refer everything to them, " I saidto myself, "as well as the many, many other ideas which occur to me onone subject or another. " Yet at this period I often asked myself, "Was Ibetter and more truthful when I only believed in the power of thehuman intellect, or am I more so now, when I am losing the faculty ofdeveloping that power, and am in doubt both as to its potency and as toits importance?" To this I could return no positive answer. 

The sense of freedom, combined with the spring-like feeling of vagueexpectation to which I have referred already, so unsettled me thatI could not keep myself in hand--could make none but the sorriest ofpreparations for my University ordeal. Thus I was busy in the schoolroomone morning, and fully aware that I must work hard, seeing thatto-morrow was the day of my examination in a subject of which I hadthe two whole questions still to read up; yet no sooner had a breath ofspring come wafted through the window than I felt as though there weresomething quite different that I wished to recall to my memory. My handslaid down my book, my feet began to move of themselves, and to set mewalking up and down the room, and my head felt as though some onehad suddenly touched in it a little spring and set some machine inmotion--so easily and swiftly and naturally did all sorts of pleasingfancies of which I could catch no more than the radiancy begin coursingthrough it. Thus one hour, two hours, elapsed unperceived. Even if Isat down determinedly to my book, and managed to concentrate my wholeattention upon what I was reading, suddenly there would sound in thecorridor the footsteps of a woman and the rustle of her dress. Instantlyeverything would escape my mind, and I would find it impossible toremain still any longer, however much I knew that the woman could onlybe either Gasha or my grandmother's old sewing-maid moving about in thecorridor. "Yet suppose it should be SHE all at once?" I would say tomyself. "Suppose IT is beginning now, and I were to lose it?" and, darting out into the corridor, I would find, each time, that it was onlyGasha. Yet for long enough afterwards I could not recall my attention tomy studies. A little spring had been touched in my head, and a strangemental ferment started afresh. Again, that evening I was sitting alonebeside a tallow candle in my room. Suddenly I looked up for a moment--tosnuff the candle, or to straighten myself in my chair--and at oncebecame aware of nothing but the darkness in the corners and the blank ofthe open doorway. Then, I also became conscious how still the house was, and felt as though I could do nothing else than go on listening to thatstillness, and gazing into the black square of that open doorway, andgradually sinking into a brown study as I sat there without moving. At intervals, however, I would get up, and go downstairs, and beginwandering through the empty rooms. Once I sat a long while in the smalldrawing-room as I listened to Gasha playing "The Nightingale" (with twofingers) on the piano in the large drawing-room, where a solitary candleburned. Later, when the moon was bright, I felt obliged to get out ofbed and to lean out of the window, so that I might gaze into the garden, and at the lighted roof of the Shaposnikoff mansion, the straighttower of our parish church, and the dark shadows of the fence and thelilac-bush where they lay black upon the path. So long did I remainthere that, when I at length returned to bed, it was ten o'clock in themorning before I could open my eyes again. 

In short, had it not been for the tutors who came to give me lessons, aswell as for St. Jerome (who at intervals, and very grudgingly, applieda spur to my self-conceit) and, most of all, for the desire to figureas "clever" in the eyes of my friend Nechludoff (who looked upondistinctions in University examinations as a matter of first-rateimportance)--had it not been for all these things, I say, the spring andmy new freedom would have combined to make me forget everything Ihad ever learnt, and so to go through the examinations to no purposewhatsoever. 

X. THE EXAMINATION IN HISTORY

ON the 16th of April I entered, for the first time, and under the wingof St. Jerome, the great hall of the University. I had driven there withSt. Jerome in our smart phaeton and wearing the first frockcoat of mylife, while the whole of my other clothes--even down to my socks andlinen--were new and of a grander sort. When a Swiss waiter relieved meof my greatcoat, and I stood before him in all the beauty of my attire, I felt almost sorry to dazzle him so. Yet I had no sooner entered thebright, carpeted, crowded hall, and caught sight of hundreds of otheryoung men in gymnasium [The Russian gymnasium = the English grammar orsecondary school. ] uniforms or frockcoats (of whom but a few threw me anindifferent glance), as well as, at the far end, of some solemn-lookingprofessors who were seated on chairs or walking carelessly about amongsome tables, than I at once became disabused of the notion that I shouldattract the general attention, while the expression of my face, which athome, and even in the vestibule of the University buildings, had denotedonly a kind of vague regret that I should have to present so importantand distinguished an appearance, became exchanged for an expressionof the most acute nervousness and dejection. However, I soon pickedup again when I perceived sitting at one of the desks a very badly, untidily dressed gentleman who, though not really old, was almostentirely grey. He was occupying a seat quite at the back of the hall anda little apart from the rest, so I hastened to sit down beside him, andthen fell to looking at the candidates for examination, and to formingconclusions about them. Many different figures and faces were there tobe seen there; yet, in my opinion, they all seemed to divide themselvesinto three classes. First of all, there were youths like myself, attending for examination in the company of their parents or tutors. Among such I could see the youngest Iwin (accompanied by Frost) andIlinka Grap (accompanied by his old father). All youths of this classwore the early beginnings of beards, sported prominent linen, satquietly in their places, and never opened the books and notebooks whichthey had brought with them, but gazed at the professors and examinationtables with ill-concealed nervousness. The second class of candidateswere young men in gymnasium uniforms. Several of them had attained tothe dignity of shaving, and most of them knew one another. They talkedloudly, called the professors by their names and surnames, occupiedthemselves in getting their subjects ready, exchanged notebooks, climbedover desks, fetched themselves pies and sandwiches from the vestibule, and ate them then and there merely lowering their heads to the levelof a desk for propriety's sake. Lastly, the third class of candidates(which seemed a small one) consisted of oldish men--some of them infrock coats, but the majority in jackets, and with no linen to be seen. These preserved a serious demeanour, sat by themselves, and had a verydingy look. The man who had afforded me consolation by being worsedressed than myself belonged to this class. Leaning forward upon hiselbows, and running his fingers through his grey, dishevelled hair as heread some book or another, he had thrown me only a momentary glance--andthat not a very friendly one--from a pair of glittering eyes. Then, as Isat down, he had frowned grimly, and stuck a shiny elbow out to preventme from coming any nearer. On the other hand, the gymnasium men wereover-sociable, and I felt rather afraid of their proximity. One of themdid not hesitate to thrust a book into my hands, saying, "Give that tothat fellow over there, will you?" while another of them exclaimed as hepushed past me, "By your leave, young fellow!" and a third made use ofmy shoulder as a prop when he wanted to scramble over a desk. All thisseemed to me a little rough and unpleasant, for I looked upon myself asimmensely superior to such fellows, and considered that they ought notto treat me with such familiarity. At length, the names began tobe called out. The gymnasium men walked out boldly, answered theirquestions (apparently) well, and came back looking cheerful. My ownclass of candidates were much more diffident, as well as appeared toanswer worse. Of the oldish men, some answered well, and some verypoorly. When the name "Semenoff" was called out my neighbour with thegrey hair and glittering eyes jostled me roughly, stepped over my legs, and went up to one of the examiners' tables. It was plain from theaspect of the professors that he answered well and with assurance, yet, on returning to his place, he did not wait to see where he was placedon the list, but quietly collected his notebooks and departed. Severaltimes I shuddered at the sound of the voice calling out the names, butmy turn did not come in exact alphabetical order, though already nameshad begun to be called beginning with "I. "

"Ikonin and Tenieff!" suddenly shouted some one from the professors' endof the hall. 

"Go on, Ikonin! You are being called, " said a tall, red-faced gymnasiumstudent near me. "But who is this BARtenieff or MORtenieff or somebody?I don't know him. "

"It must be you, " whispered St. Jerome loudly in my ear. 

"MY name is IRtenieff, " I said to the red-faced student. "Do you thinkthat was the name they were calling out?"

"Yes. Why on earth don't you go up?" he replied. "Lord, what a dandy!"he added under his breath, yet not so quietly but that I failed to hearthe words as they came wafted to me from below the desk. In front ofme walked Ikonin--a tall young man of about twenty-five, who was one ofthose whom I had classed as oldish men. He wore a tight brown frockcoatand a blue satin tie, and had wisps of flaxen hair carefully brushedover his collar in the peasant style. His appearance had already caughtmy attention when we were sitting among the desks, and had given me animpression that he was not bad-looking. Also I had noticed that he wasvery talkative. Yet what struck me most about his physiognomy was atuft, of queer red hairs which he had under his chin, as well as, stillmore, a strange habit of continually unbuttoning his waistcoat andscratching his chest under his shirt. 

Behind the table to which we were summoned sat three Professors, none ofwhom acknowledged our salutations. A youngish professor was shuffling abundle of tickets like a pack of cards; another one, with a star on hisfrockcoat, was gazing hard at a gymnasium student, who was repeatingsomething at great speed about Charles the Great, and adding to eachof his sentences the word nakonetz [= the English colloquialism "youknow. "] while a third one--an old man in spectacles--proceeded to bendhis head down as we approached, and, peering at us through his glasses, pointed silently to the tickets. I felt his glance go over both myselfand Ikonin, and also felt sure that something about us had displeasedhim (perhaps it was Ikonin's red hairs), for, after taking another lookat the pair of us, he motioned impatiently to us to be quick in takingour tickets. I felt vexed and offended--firstly, because none of theprofessors had responded to our bows, and, secondly, because theyevidently coupled me with Ikonin under the one denomination of"candidates, " and so were condemning me in advance on account ofIkonin's red hairs. I took my ticket boldly and made ready to answer, but the professor's eye passed over my head and alighted upon Ikonin. Accordingly, I occupied myself in reading my ticket. The questionsprinted on it were all familiar to me, so, as I silently awaited myturn, I gazed at what was passing near me, Ikonin seemed in no waydiffident--rather the reverse, for, in reaching for his ticket, he threwhis body half-way across the table. Then he gave his long hair a shake, and rapidly conned over what was written on his ticket. I think hehad just opened his mouth to answer when the professor with the stardismissed the gymnasium student with a word of commendation, and thenturned and looked at Ikonin. At once the latter seemed taken back, andstopped short. For about two minutes there was a dead silence. 

"Well?" said the professor in the spectacles. 

Once more Ikonin opened his mouth, and once more remained silent. 

"Come! You are not the only one to be examined. Do you mean to answeror do you not?" said the youngish professor, but Ikonin did not evenlook at him. He was gazing fixedly at his ticket and uttered not asingle word. The professor in the spectacles scanned him through hisglasses, then over them, then without them (for, indeed, he had timeto take them off, to wipe their lenses carefully, and to replace them). Still not a word from Ikonin. All at once, however, a smile spreaditself over his face, and he gave his long hair another shake. Next hereached across the table, laid down his ticket, looked at each of theprofessors in turn and then at myself, and finally, wheeling round onhis heels, made a gesture with his hand and returned to the desks. Theprofessors stared blankly at one another. 

"Bless the fellow!" said the youngish professor. "What an original!"

It was now my turn to move towards the table, but the professors went ontalking in undertones among themselves, as though they were unaware ofmy presence. At the moment, I felt firmly persuaded that the three ofthem were engrossed solely with the question of whether I should merelyPASS the examination or whether I should pass it WELL, and that it wasonly swagger which made them pretend that they did not care either way, and behave as though they had not seen me. 

When at length the professor in the spectacles turned to me with an airof indifference, and invited me to answer, I felt hurt, as I looked athim, to think that he should have so undeceived me: wherefore I answeredbrokenly at first. In time, however, things came easier to my tongue, and, inasmuch as all the questions bore upon Russian history (which Iknew thoroughly), I ended with eclat, and even went so far, in my desireto convince the professors that I was not Ikonin and that they must notin anyway confound me with him, as to offer to draw a second ticket. Theprofessor in the spectacles, however, merely nodded his head, said "Thatwill do, " and marked something in his register. On returning to thedesks, I at once learnt from the gymnasium men (who somehow seemed toknow everything) that I had been placed fifth. 

XI. MY EXAMINATION IN MATHEMATICS

AT the subsequent examinations, I made several new acquaintances inaddition to the Graps (whom I considered unworthy of my notice) andIwin (who for some reason or other avoided me). With some of these newfriends I grew quite intimate, and even Ikonin plucked up sufficientcourage to inform me, when we next met, that he would have to undergore-examination in history--the reason for his failure this time beingthat the professor of that faculty had never forgiven him for lastyear's examination, and had, indeed, "almost killed" him for it. Semenoff (who was destined for the same faculty as myself--thefaculty of mathematics) avoided every one up to the very close of theexaminations. Always leaning forward upon his elbows and running hisfingers through his grey hair, he sat silent and alone. Nevertheless, when called up for examination in mathematics (he had no companionto accompany him), he came out second. The first place was taken by astudent from the first gymnasium--a tall, dark, lanky, pale-faced fellowwho wore a black folded cravat and had his cheeks and forehead dottedall over with pimples. His hands were shapely and slender, but theirnails were so bitten to the quick that the finger-ends looked as thoughthey had been tied round with strips of thread. All this seemed to mesplendid, and wholly becoming to a student of the first gymnasium. He spoke to every one, and we all made friends with him. To me inparticular his walk, his every movement, his lips, his dark eyes, allseemed to have in them something extraordinary and magnetic. 

On the day of the mathematical examination I arrived earlier than usualat the hall. I knew the syllabus well, yet there were two questionsin the algebra which my tutor had managed to pass over, and which weretherefore quite unknown to me. If I remember rightly, they were theTheory of Combinations and Newton's Binomial. I seated myself on one ofthe back benches and pored over the two questions, but, inasmuch as Iwas not accustomed to working in a noisy room, and had even less timefor preparation than I had anticipated, I soon found it difficult totake in all that I was reading. 

"Here he is. This way, Nechludoff, " said Woloda's familiar voice behindme. 

I turned and saw my brother and Dimitri--their gowns unbuttoned, andtheir hands waving a greeting to me--threading their way through thedesks. A moment's glance would have sufficed to show any one that theywere second-course students--persons to whom the University was as asecond home. The mere look of their open gowns expressed at once disdainfor the "mere candidate" and a knowledge that the "mere candidate's"soul was filled with envy and admiration of them. I was charmed to thinkthat every one near me could now see that I knew two real second-coursestudents: wherefore I hastened to meet them half-way. 

Woloda, of course, could not help vaunting his superiority a little. 

"Hullo, you smug!" he said. "Haven't you been examined yet?"

"No. "

"Well, what are you reading? Aren't you sufficiently primed?"

"Yes, except in two questions. I don't understand them at all. "

"Eh, what?"--and Woloda straightway began to expound to me Newton'sBinomial, but so rapidly and unintelligibly that, suddenly reading in myeyes certain misgivings as to the soundness of his knowledge, he glancedalso at Dimitri's face. Clearly, he saw the same misgivings there, forhe blushed hotly, though still continuing his involved explanations. 

"No; hold on, Woloda, and let me try and do it, " put in Dimitri atlength, with a glance at the professors' corner as he seated himselfbeside me. 

I could see that my friend was in the best of humours. This was alwaysthe case with him when he was satisfied with himself, and was one of thethings in him which I liked best. Inasmuch as he knew mathematics welland could speak clearly, he hammered the question so thoroughly into myhead that I can remember it to this day. Hardly had he finished when St. Jerome said to me in a loud whisper, "A vous, Nicolas, " and I followedIkonin out from among the desks without having had an opportunity ofgoing through the OTHER question of which I was ignorant. At the tablewhich we now approached were seated two professors, while before theblackboard stood a gymnasium student, who was working some formulaaloud, and knocking bits off the end of the chalk with his too vigorousstrokes. He even continued writing after one of the Professors had saidto him "Enough!" and bidden us draw our tickets. "Suppose I get theTheory of Combinations?" I thought to myself as my tremulous fingerstook a ticket from among a bundle wrapped in torn paper. Ikonin, forhis part, reached across the table with the same assurance, and thesame sidelong movement of his whole body, as he had done at the previousexamination. Taking the topmost ticket without troubling to make furtherselection, he just glanced at it, and then frowned angrily. 

"I always draw this kind of thing, " he muttered. 

I looked at mine. Horrors! It was the Theory of Combinations!

"What have you got?" whispered Ikonin at this point. 

I showed him. 

"Oh, I know that, " he said. 

"Will you make an exchange, then?"

"No. Besides, it would be all the same for me if I did, " he contrived towhisper just as the professor called us up to the blackboard. "I don'tfeel up to anything to-day. "

"Then everything is lost!" I thought to myself. Instead of the brilliantresult which I had anticipated I should be for ever covered withshame--more so even than Ikonin! Suddenly, under the very eyes of theprofessor, Ikonin turned to me, snatched my ticket out of my hands, andhanded me his own. I looked at his ticket. It was Newton's Binomial!

The professor was a youngish man, with a pleasant, clever expression offace--an effect chiefly due to the prominence of the lower part of hisforehead. 

"What? Are you exchanging tickets, gentlemen?" he said. 

"No. He only gave me his to look at, professor, " answered Ikonin--and, sure enough, the word "professor" was the last word that he utteredthere. Once again, he stepped backwards towards me from the table, onceagain he looked at each of the professors in turn and then at myself, once again he smiled faintly, and once again he shrugged his shouldersas much as to say, "It is no use, my good sirs. " Then he returned to thedesks. Subsequently, I learnt that this was the third year he had vainlyattempted to matriculate. 

I answered my question well, for I had just read it up; and theprofessor, kindly informing me that I had done even better than wasrequired, placed me fifth. 

XII. MY EXAMINATION IN LATIN

All went well until my examination in Latin. So far, a gymnasium studentstood first on the list, Semenoff second, and myself third. On thestrength of it I had begun to swagger a little, and to think that, forall my youth, I was not to be despised. 

From the first day of the examinations, I had heard every one speak withawe of the Professor of Latin, who appeared to be some sort of a wildbeast who battened on the financial ruin of young men (of those, that isto say, who paid their own fees) and spoke only in the Greek andLatin tongues. However, St. Jerome, who had coached me in Latin, spokeencouragingly, and I myself thought that, since I could translate Ciceroand certain parts of Horace without the aid of a lexicon, I should dono worse than the rest. Yet things proved otherwise. All the morning theair had been full of rumours concerning the tribulations of candidateswho had gone up before me: rumours of how one young fellow had beenaccorded a nought, another one a single mark only, a third one greetedwith abuse and threatened with expulsion, and so forth. Only Semenoffand the first gymnasium student had, as usual, gone up quietly, andreturned to their seats with five marks credited to their names. AlreadyI felt a prescience of disaster when Ikonin and myself found ourselvessummoned to the little table at which the terrible professor sat insolitary grandeur. 

The terrible professor turned out to be a little thin, bilious-lookingman with hair long and greasy and a face expressive of extraordinarysullenness. Handing Ikonin a copy of Cicero's Orations, he bid himtranslate. To my great astonishment Ikonin not only read off some ofthe Latin, but even managed to construe a few lines to the professor'sprompting. At the same time, conscious of my superiority over such afeeble companion, I could not help smiling a little, and even lookingrather contemptuous, when it came to a question of analysis, and Ikonin, as on previous occasions, plunged into a silence which promised neverto end. I had hoped to please the professor by that knowing, slightlysarcastic smile of mine, but, as a matter of fact, I contrived to doquite the contrary. 

"Evidently you know better than he, since you are laughing, " he said tome in bad Russian. "Well, we shall see. Tell me the answer, then. "

Later I learnt that the professor was Ikonin's guardian, and that Ikoninactually lived with him. I lost no time in answering the question insyntax which had been put to Ikonin, but the professor only pulled along face and turned away from me. 

"Well, your turn will come presently, and then we shall see how much youknow, " he remarked, without looking at me, but proceeding to explain toIkonin the point on which he had questioned him. 

"That will do, " he added, and I saw him put down four marks to Ikonin inhis register. "Come!" I thought to myself. "He cannot be so strict afterall. "

When Ikonin had taken his departure the professor spent fully fiveminutes--five minutes which seemed to me five hours--in setting hisbooks and tickets in order, in blowing his nose, in adjusting andsprawling about on his chair, in gazing down the hall, and in lookinghere, there, and everywhere--in doing everything, in fact, except onceletting his eye rest upon me. Yet even that amount of dissimulation didnot seem to satisfy him, for he next opened a book, and pretended toread it, for all the world as though I were not there at all. I moved alittle nearer him, and gave a cough. 

"Ah, yes! You too, of course! Well, translate me something, " heremarked, handing me a book of some kind. "But no; you had better takethis, " and, turning over the leaves of a Horace, he indicated to me apassage which I should never have imagined possible of translation. 

"I have not prepared this, " I said. 

"Oh! Then you only wish to answer things which you have got by heart, doyou? Indeed? No, no; translate me that. "

I started to grope for the meaning of the passage, but each questioninglook which I threw at the professor was met by a shake of the head, aprofound sigh, and an exclamation of "No, no!" Finally he banged thebook to with such a snap that he caught his finger between the covers. Angrily releasing it, he handed me a ticket containing questions ingrammar, and, flinging himself back in his chair, maintained a menacingsilence. I should have tried to answer the questions had not theexpression of his face so clogged my tongue that nothing seemed to comefrom it right. 

"No, no! That's not it at all!" he suddenly exclaimed in his horribleaccent as he altered his posture to one of leaning forward upon thetable and playing with the gold signet-ring which was nearly slippingfrom the little finger of his left hand. "That is not the way to preparefor serious study, my good sir. Fellows like yourself think that, oncethey have a gown and a blue collar to their backs, they have reached thesummit of all things and become students. No, no, my dear sir. A subjectneeds to be studied FUNDAMENTALLY, " and so on, and so on. 

During this speech (which was uttered with a clipped sort of intonation)I went on staring dully at his lowered eyelids. Beginning with a fearlest I should lose my place as third on the list, I went on to fear lestI should pass at all. Next, these feelings became reinforced by a senseof injustice, injured self-respect, and unmerited humiliation, while thecontempt which I felt for the professor as some one not quite (accordingto my ideas) "comme il faut"--a fact which I deduced from the shortness, strength, and roundness of his nails--flared up in me more and more andturned all my other feelings to sheer animosity. Happening, presently, to glance at me, and to note my quivering lips and tear-filled eyes, heseemed to interpret my agitation as a desire to be accorded my marks anddismissed: wherefore, with an air of relenting, he said (in the presenceof another professor who had just approached):

"Very well; I will accord you a 'pass'" (which signified two marks), "although you do not deserve it. I do so simply out of consideration foryour youth, and in the hope that, when you begin your University career, you will learn to be less light-minded. "

The concluding phrase, uttered in the hearing of the other professor(who at once turned his eyes upon me, as though remarking, "There! Yousee, young man!") completed my discomfiture. For a moment, a mist swambefore my eyes--a mist in which the terrible professor seemed to be faraway, as he sat at his table while for an instant a wild idea dancedthrough my brain. "What if I DID do such a thing?" I thought to myself. "What would come of it?" However, I did not do the thing in question, but, on the contrary, made a bow of peculiar reverence to each of theprofessors, and with a slight smile on my face--presumably the samesmile as that with which I had derided Ikonin--turned away from thetable. 

This piece of unfairness affected me so powerfully at the time that, hadI been a free agent, I should have attended for no more examinations. My ambition was gone (since now I could not possibly be third), and Itherefore let the other examinations pass without any exertion, or evenagitation, on my part. In the general list I still stood fourth, butthat failed to interest me, since I had reasoned things out to myself, and come to the conclusion that to try for first place was stupid--even"bad form:" that, in fact, it was better to pass neither very well norvery badly, as Woloda had done. This attitude I decided to maintainthroughout the whole of my University career, notwithstanding that itwas the first point on which my opinion had differed from that of myfriend Dimitri. 

Yet, to tell the truth, my thoughts were already turning towards auniform, a "mortar-board, " and the possession of a drozhki of my own, a room of my own, and, above all, freedom of my own. And certainly theprospect had its charm. 

XIII. I BECOME GROWN-UP

When, on May 8th, I returned home from the final, the divinity, examination, I found my acquaintance, the foreman from Rozonoff's, awaiting me. He had called once before to fit me for my gown, as wellas for a tunic of glossy black cloth (the lapels of which were, on thatoccasion, only sketched in chalk), but to-day he had come to bring methe clothes in their finished state, with their gilt buttons wrapped intissue paper. 

Donning the garments, and finding them splendid (notwithstanding thatSt. Jerome assured me that the back of the tunic wrinkled badly), I wentdownstairs with a complacent smile which I was powerless to banish frommy face, and sought Woloda, trying the while to affect unconsciousnessof the admiring looks of the servants, who came darting out of the halland corridor to gaze upon me with ravished eyes. Gabriel, the butler, overtook me in the salle, and, after congratulating me with muchempressement, handed me, according to instructions from my father, fourbank-notes, as well as informed me that Papa had also given orders that, from that day forth, the groom Kuzma, the phaeton, and the bay horseKrassavchik were to be entirely at my disposal. I was so overjoyed atthis not altogether expected good-fortune that I could no longer feignindifference in Gabriel's presence, but, flustered and panting, saidthe first thing which came into my head ("Krassavchik is a splendidtrotter, " I think it was). Then, catching sight of the various headsprotruding from the doors of the hall and corridor, I felt that Icould bear no more, and set off running at full speed across the salle, dressed as I was in the new tunic, with its shining gilt buttons. Justas I burst into Woloda's room, I heard behind me the voices of Dubkoffand Nechludoff, who had come to congratulate me, as well as to proposea dinner somewhere and the drinking of much champagne in honour of mymatriculation. Dimitri informed me that, though he did not care forchampagne, he would nevertheless join us that evening and drink myhealth, while Dubkoff remarked that I looked almost like a colonel, andWoloda omitted to congratulate me at all, merely saying in an acid waythat he supposed we should now--i. E. In two days time--be off into thecountry. The truth was that Woloda, though pleased at my matriculation, did not altogether like my becoming as grown-up as himself. St. Jerome, who also joined us at this moment, said in a very pompous manner thathis duties were now ended, and that, although he did not know whetherthey had been well done or ill, at least he had done his best, and mustdepart to-morrow to his Count's. In replying to their various remarksI could feel, in spite of myself, a pleased, agreeable, faintlyself-sufficient smile playing over my countenance, as well as couldremark that that smile, communicated itself to those to whom I wasspeaking. 

So here was I without a tutor, yet with my own private drozhki, myname printed on the list of students, a sword and belt of my own, and achance of an occasional salute from officials! In short, I was grownupand, I suppose, happy. 

Finally, we arranged to go out and dine at five o'clock, but sinceWoloda presently went off to Dubkoff's, and Dimitri disappeared inhis usual fashion (saying that there was something he MUST do beforedinner), I was left with two whole hours still at my disposal. For atime I walked through the rooms of the house, and looked at myselfin all the mirrors--firstly with the tunic buttoned, then with itunbuttoned, and lastly with only the top button fastened. Each time itlooked splendid. Eventually, though anxious not to show any excess ofdelight, I found myself unable to refrain from crossing over to thecoach-house and stables to gaze at Krassovchik, Kuzma, and the drozhki. Then I returned and once more began my tour of the rooms, where I lookedat myself in all the mirrors as before, and counted my money over in mypocket--my face smiling happily the while. Yet not an hour had elapsedbefore I began to feel slightly ennuye--to feel a shade of regret thatno one was present to see me in my splendid position. I began to longfor life and movement, and so sent out orders for the drozhki to be gotready, since I had made up my mind to drive to the Kuznetski Bridge andmake some purchases. 

In this connection I recalled how, after matriculating, Woloda had goneand bought himself a lithograph of horses by Victor Adam and some pipesand tobacco: wherefore I felt that I too must do the same. Amid glancesshowered upon me from every side, and with the sunlight reflected frommy buttons, cap-badge, and sword, I drove to the Kuznetski Bridge, where, halting at a Picture shop, I entered it with my eyes looking toevery side. It was not precisely horses by Adam which I meant to buy, since I did not wish to be accused of too closely imitating Woloda;wherefore, out of shame for causing the obsequious shopmen suchagitation as I appeared to do, I made a hasty selection, and pitchedupon a water-colour of a woman's head which I saw displayed in thewindow--price twenty roubles. Yet no sooner had I paid the twentyroubles over the counter than my heart smote me for having put twosuch beautifully dressed shop-assistants to so much trouble for sucha trifle. Moreover, I fancied that they were regarding me with somedisdain. Accordingly, in my desire to show them what manner of man Iwas, I turned my attention to a silver trifle which I saw displayed ina show-case, and, recognising that it was a porte-crayon (price eighteenroubles), requested that it should forthwith be wrapped in paper for me. Next, the money paid, and the information acquired that splendid pipesand tobacco were to be obtained in an adjacent emporium, I bowed to thetwo shopmen politely, and issued into the street with the picture undermy arm. At the shop next door (which had painted on its sign-board anegro smoking a cigar) I bought (likewise out of a desire to imitate noone) some Turkish tobacco, a Stamboul hookah, and two pipes. On comingout of the shop, I had just entered the drozhki when I caught sight ofSemenoff, who was walking hurriedly along the pavement with his headbent down. Vexed that he should not have recognised me, I called outto him pretty loudly, "Hold on a minute!" and, whipping up the drozhki, soon overtook him. 

"How do you do?" I said. 

"My respects to you, " he replied, but without stopping. 

"Why are you not in your University uniform?" I next inquired. 

At this he stopped short with a frown, and parted his white teeth asthough the sun were hurting his eyes. The next moment, however, hethrew a glance of studied indifference at my drozhki and uniform, andcontinued on his way. 

From the Kuznetski Bridge, I drove to a confectioner's in TverskaiaStreet, and, much as I should have liked it to be supposed that it wasthe newspapers which most interested me, I had no choice but to beginfalling upon tartlet after tartlet. In fact, for all my bashfulnessbefore a gentleman who kept regarding me with some curiosity from behinda newspaper, I ate with great swiftness a tartlet of each of the eightdifferent sorts which the confectioner kept. 

On reaching home, I experienced a slight touch of stomach-ache, but paidno attention to it, and set to work to inspect my purchases. Of these, the picture so much displeased me that, instead of having it framed andhung in my room, as Woloda had done with his, I took pains to hide itbehind a chest of drawers, where no one could see it. Likewise, though Ialso found the porte-crayon distasteful, I was able, as I laid it on mytable, to comfort myself with the thought that it was at least a SILVERarticle--so much capital, as it were--and likely to be very useful toa student. As for the smoking things, I decided to put them into use atonce, and try their capabilities. 

Unsealing the four packages, and carefully filling the Stamboul pipewith some fine-cut, reddish-yellow Turkish tobacco, I applied a hotcinder to it, and, taking the mouthpiece between my first and secondfingers (a position of the hand which greatly caught my fancy), startedto inhale the smoke. 

The smell of the tobacco seemed delightful, yet something burnt my mouthand caught me by the breath. Nevertheless, I hardened my heart, andcontinued to draw abundant fumes into my interior. Then I tried blowingrings and retaining the smoke. Soon the room became filled with bluevapours, while the pipe started to crackle and the tobacco to fly outin sparks. Presently, also, I began to feel a smarting in my mouth anda giddiness in my head. Accordingly, I was on the point of stopping andgoing to look at myself and my pipe in the mirror, when, to my surprise, I found myself staggering about. The room was whirling round andround, and as I peered into the mirror (which I reached only with somedifficulty) I perceived that my face was as white as a sheet. Hardly hadI thrown myself down upon a sofa when such nausea and faintness sweptover me that, making up my mind that the pipe had proved my death, Iexpected every moment to expire. Terribly frightened, I tried to callout for some one to come and help me, and to send for the doctor. 

However, this panic of mine did not last long, for I soon understoodwhat the matter with me was, and remained lying on the sofa with aracking headache and my limbs relaxed as I stared dully at the stamp onthe package of tobacco, the Pipe-tube coiled on the floor, and the oddsand ends of tobacco and confectioner's tartlets which were litteredabout. "Truly, " I thought to myself in my dejection and disillusionment, "I cannot be quite grown-up if I cannot smoke as other fellows do, andshould be fated never to hold a chibouk between my first and secondfingers, or to inhale and puff smoke through a flaxen moustache!"

When Dimitri called for me at five o'clock, he found me in thisunpleasant predicament. After drinking a glass of water, however, I feltnearly recovered, and ready to go with him. 

"So much for your trying to smoke!" said he as he gazed at the remnantsof my debauch. "It is a silly thing to do, and waste of money as well. Ilong ago promised myself never to smoke. But come along; we have to callfor Dubkoff. "

XIV. HOW WOLODA AND DUBKOFF AMUSED THEMSELVES

THE moment that Dimitri entered my room I perceived from his face, manner of walking, and the signs which, in him, denoted ill-humour--ablinking of the eyes and a grim holding of his head to one side, asthough to straighten his collar--that he was in the coldly-correct frameof mind which was his when he felt dissatisfied with himself. It wasa frame of mind, too, which always produced a chilling effect upon myfeelings towards him. Of late I had begun to observe and appraise myfriend's character a little more, but our friendship had in no waysuffered from that, since it was still too young and strong for me tobe able to look upon Dimitri as anything but perfect, no matter in whatlight I regarded him. In him there were two personalities, both ofwhich I thought beautiful. One, which I loved devotedly, was kind, mild, forgiving, gay, and conscious of being those various things. When he wasin this frame of mind his whole exterior, the very tone of his voice, his every movement, appeared to say: "I am kind and good-natured, andrejoice in being so, and every one can see that I so rejoice. " The otherof his two personalities--one which I had only just begun to apprehend, and before the majesty of which I bowed in spirit--was that of a man whowas cold, stern to himself and to others, proud, religious to the pointof fanaticism, and pedantically moral. At the present moment he was, asI say, this second personality. 

With that frankness which constituted a necessary condition of ourrelations I told him, as soon as we entered the drozhki, how much itdepressed and hurt me to see him, on this my fete-day in a frame of mindso irksome and disagreeable to me. 

"What has upset you so?" I asked him. "Will you not tell me?"

"My dear Nicolas, " was his slow reply as he gave his head a nervoustwitch to one side and blinked his eyes, "since I have given you my wordnever to conceal anything from you, you have no reason to suspect me ofsecretiveness. One cannot always be in exactly the same mood, and if Iseem at all put out, that is all there is to say about it. "

"What a marvellously open, honourable character his is!" I thought tomyself, and dropped the subject. 

We drove the rest of the way to Dubkoff's in silence. Dubkoff's flat wasan unusually fine one--or, at all events, so it seemed to me. Everywherewere rugs, pictures, gardenias, striped hangings, photographs, andcurved settees, while on the walls hung guns, pistols, pouches, and themounted heads of wild beasts. It was the appearance of this apartmentwhich made me aware whom, it was that Woloda had imitated in the schemeof his own sitting-room. We found Dubkoff and Woloda engaged in cards, while seated also at the table, and watching the game with closeattention, was a gentleman whom I did not know, but who appeared to beof no great importance, judging by the modesty of his attitude. Dubkoff himself was in a silk dressing-gown and soft slippers, whileWoloda--seated opposite him on a divan--was in his shirtsleeves, as wellas (to judge by his flushed face and the impatient, cursory glance whichhe gave us for a second as he looked up from the cards) much taken upwith the game. On seeing me, he reddened still more. 

"Well, it is for you to deal, " he remarked to Dubkoff. In an instant Idivined that he did not altogether relish my becoming acquainted withthe fact that he gambled. Yet his expression had nothing in it ofconfusion--only a look which seemed to me to say: "Yes, I play cards, and if you are surprised at that, it is only because you are so young. There is nothing wrong about it--it is a necessity at our age. " Yes, Iat once divined and understood that. 

Instead of dealing, however, Dubkoff rose and shook hands with us; afterwhich he bade us both be seated, and then offered us pipes, which wedeclined. 

"Here is our DIPLOMAT, then--the hero of the day!" he said to me, "GoodLord! how you look like a colonel!"

"H-m!" I muttered in reply, though once more feeling a complacent smileoverspread my countenance. 

I stood in that awe of Dubkoff which a sixteen-year-old boy naturallyfeels for a twenty-seven-year-old man of whom his elders say that he isa very clever young man who can dance well and speak French, and who, though secretly despising one's youth, endeavours to conceal the fact. Yet, despite my respect for him, I somehow found it difficult anduncomfortable, throughout my acquaintanceship with him, to look him inthe eyes, I have since remarked that there are three kinds of men whom Icannot face easily, namely those who are much better than myself, thosewho are much worse, and those between whom and myself there is a mutualdetermination not to mention some particular thing of which we are bothaware. Dubkoff may have been a much better fellow than myself, or he mayhave been a much worse; but the point was that he lied very frequentlywithout recognising the fact that I was aware of his doing so, yet haddetermined not to mention it. 

"Let us play another round, " said Woloda, hunching one shoulder afterthe manner of Papa, and reshuffling the cards. 

"How persistent you are!" said Dubkoff. "We can play all we want toafterwards. Well, one more round, then. "

During the play, I looked at their hands. Woloda's hands were large andred, whilst in the crook of the thumb and the way in which the otherfingers curved themselves round the cards as he held them they soexactly resembled Papa's that now and then I could not help thinkingthat Woloda purposely held the cards thus so as to look the more like agrownup. Yet the next moment, looking at his face, I could see that hehad not a thought in his mind beyond the game. Dubkoff's hands, on thecontrary, were small, puffy, and inclined to clench themselves, as wellas extremely neat and small-fingered. They were just the kind of handswhich generally display rings, and which are most to be seen on personswho are both inclined to use them and fond of objets de vertu. 

Woloda must have lost, for the gentleman who was watching the playremarked that Vladimir Petrovitch had terribly bad luck, while Dubkoffreached for a note book, wrote something in it, and then, showing Wolodawhat he had written, said:

"Is that right?"

"Yes. " said Woloda, glancing with feigned carelessness at the note book. "Now let us go. "

Woloda took Dubkoff, and I gave Dimitri a lift in my drozhki. 

"What were they playing at?" I inquired of Dimitri. 

"At piquet. It is a stupid game. In fact, all such games are stupid. "

"And were they playing for much?"

"No, not very much, but more than they ought to. "

"Do you ever play yourself?"

"No; I swore never to do so; but Dubkoff will play with any one he canget hold of. "

"He ought not to do that, " I remarked. "So Woloda does not play so wellas he does?"

"Perhaps Dubkoff ought not to, as you say, yet there is nothingespecially bad about it all. He likes playing, and plays well, but he isa good fellow all the same. "

"I had no idea of this, " I said. 

"We must not think ill of him, " concluded Dimitri, "since he is a simplysplendid fellow. I like him very much, and always shall like him, inspite of his weakness. "

For some reason or another the idea occurred to me that, just BECAUSEDimitri stuck up so stoutly for Dubkoff, he neither liked nor respectedhim in reality, but was determined, out of stubbornness and a desire notto be accused of inconstancy, never to own to the fact. He was one ofthose people who love their friends their life long, not so muchbecause those friends remain always dear to them, as because, havingonce--possibly mistakenly--liked a person, they look upon it asdishonourable to cease ever to do so. 

XV. I AM FETED AT DINNER

Dubkoff and Woloda knew every one at the restaurant by name, and everyone, from the waiters to the proprietor, paid them great respect. Notime was lost in allotting us a private room, where a bottle of icedchampagne-upon which I tried to look with as much indifference as Icould--stood ready waiting for us, and where we were served with a mostwonderful repast selected by Dubkoff from the French menu. The meal wentoff most gaily and agreeably, notwithstanding that Dubkoff, as usual, told us blood-curdling tales of doubtful veracity (among others, a taleof how his grandmother once shot dead three robbers who were attackingher--a recital at which I blushed, closed my eyes, and turned away fromthe narrator), and that Woloda reddened visibly whenever I opened mymouth to speak--which was the more uncalled for on his part, seeing thatnever once, so far as I can remember, did I say anything shameful. Afterwe had been given champagne, every one congratulated me, and I drank"hands across" with Dimitri and Dubkoff, and wished them joy. Since, however, I did not know to whom the bottle of champagne belonged (it wasexplained to me later that it was common property), I considered that, in return, I ought to treat my friends out of the money which I hadnever ceased to finger in my pocket. Accordingly, I stealthily extracteda ten-rouble note, and, beckoning the waiter to my side, handed him themoney, and told him in a whisper (yet not so softly but that every onecould hear me, seeing that every one was staring at me in dead silence)to "bring, if you please, a half-bottle of champagne. " At this Wolodareddened again, and began to fidget so violently, and to gaze uponmyself and every one else with such a distracted air, that I felt sureI had somehow put my foot in it. However, the half-bottle came, and wedrank it with great gusto. After that, things went on merrily. Dubkoffcontinued his unending fairy tales, while Woloda also told funnystories--and told them well, too--in a way I should never have creditedhim: so that our laughter rang long and loud. Their best efforts lay inimitation, and in variants of a certain well-known saw. "Have you everbeen abroad?" one would say to the other, for instance. "No, " theone interrogated would reply, "but my brother plays the fiddle. " Suchperfection had the pair attained in this species of comic absurditythat they could answer any question by its means, while they would alsoendeavour to unite two absolutely unconnected matters without a previousquestion having been asked at all, yet say everything with a perfectlyserious face and produce a most comic effect. I too began to try to befunny, but as soon as ever I spoke they either looked at me askance ordid not look at me until I had finished: so that my anecdotes fell flat. Yet, though Dubkoff always remarked, "Our DIPLOMAT is lying, brother, " Ifelt so exhilarated with the champagne and the company of my elders thatthe remark scarcely touched me. Only Dimitri, though he drank level withthe rest of us, continued in the same severe, serious frame of mind--afact which put a certain check upon the general hilarity. 

"Now, look here, gentlemen, " said Dubkoff at last. "After dinner weought to take the DIPLOMAT in hand. How would it be for him to go withus to see Auntie? There we could put him through his paces. "

"Ah, but Nechludoff will not go there, " objected Woloda. 

"O unbearable, insupportable man of quiet habits that you are!" criedDubkoff, turning to Dimitri. "Yet come with us, and you shall see whatan excellent lady my dear Auntie is. "

"I will neither go myself nor let him go, " replied Dimitri. 

"Let whom go? The DIPLOMAT? Why, you yourself saw how he brightened upat the very mention of Auntie. "

"It is not so much that I WILL NOT LET HIM go, " continued Dimitri, rising and beginning to pace the room without looking at me, "as that Ineither wish him nor advise him to go. He is not a child now, and if hemust go he can go alone--without you. Surely you are ashamed of this, Dubkoff?--ashamed of always wanting others to do all the wrong thingsthat you yourself do?"

"But what is there so very wrong in my inviting you all to come and takea cup of tea with my Aunt?" said Dubkoff, with a wink at Woloda. "If youdon't like us going, it is your affair; yet we are going all the same. Are you coming, Woloda?"

"Yes, yes, " assented Woloda. "We can go there, and then return to myrooms and continue our piquet. "

"Do you want to go with them or not?" said Dimitri, approaching me. 

"No, " I replied, at the same time making room for him to sit down besideme on the divan. "I did not wish to go in any case, and since you adviseme not to, nothing on earth will make me go now. Yet, " I added a momentlater, "I cannot honestly say that I have NO desire to go. All I say isthat I am glad I am not going. "

"That is right, " he said. "Live your own life, and do not dance to anyone's piping. That is the better way. "

This little tiff not only failed to mar our hilarity, but even increasedit. Dimitri suddenly reverted to the kindly mood which I loved best--sogreat (as I afterwards remarked on more than one occasion) was theinfluence which the consciousness of having done a good deed exercisedupon him. At the present moment the source of his satisfaction wasthe fact that he had stopped my expedition to "Auntie's. " He grewextraordinarily gay, called for another bottle of champagne (which wasagainst his rules), invited some one who was a perfect stranger into ourroom, plied him with wine, sang "Gaudeamus igitur, " requested every oneto join him in the chorus, and proposed that we should and rink at theSokolniki. [Mews. ]

"Let us enjoy ourselves to-night, " he said with a laugh. "It is inhonour of his matriculation that you now see me getting drunk for thefirst time in my life. "

Yet somehow this merriment sat ill upon him. He was like somegood-natured father or tutor who is pleased with his young charges, andlets himself go for their amusement, yet at the same time tries to showthem that one can enjoy oneself decently and in an honourable manner. However, his unexpected gaiety had an infectious influence upon myselfand my companions, and the more so because each of us had now drunkabout half a bottle of champagne. 

It was in this pleasing frame of mind that I went out into the mainsalon to smoke a cigarette which Dubkoff had given me. In rising Inoticed that my head seemed to swim a little, and that my legs andarms retained their natural positions only when I bent my thoughtsdeterminedly upon them. At other moments my legs would deviate from thestraight line, and my arms describe strange gestures. I concentrated mywhole attention upon the members in question, forced my hands first toraise themselves and button my tunic, and then to smooth my hair (thoughthey ruffled my locks in doing so), and lastly commanded my legs tomarch me to the door--a function which they duly performed, though atone time with too much reluctance, and at another with too much ABANDON(the left leg, in particular, coming to a halt every moment on tiptoe). Some one called out to me, "Where are you going to? They will bring youa cigar-light directly, " but I guessed the voice to be Woloda's, and, feeling satisfied, somehow, that I had succeeded in divining the fact, merely smiled airily in reply, and continued on my way. 

XVI. THE QUARREL

In the main salon I perceived sitting at a small table a short, squatgentleman of the professional type. He had a red moustache, and wasengaged in eating something or another, while by his side sat a tall, clean-shaven individual with whom he was carrying on a conversation inFrench. Somehow the aspect of these two persons displeased me; yet Idecided, for all that, to light my cigarette at the candelabrum whichwas standing before them. Looking from side to side, to avoid meetingtheir gaze, I approached the table, and applied my cigarette to theflame. When it was fairly alight, I involuntarily threw a glance at thegentleman who was eating, and found his grey eyes fixed upon me with anexpression of intense displeasure. Just as I was turning away his redmoustache moved a little, and he said in French:

"I do not like people to smoke when I am dining, my good sir. "

I murmured something inaudible. 

"No, I do not like it at all, " he went on sternly, and with a glance athis clean-shaven companion, as though inviting him to admire the way inwhich he was about to deal with me. "I do not like it, my good sir, nordo I like people who have the impudence to puff their smoke up one'svery nose. "

By this time I had gathered that it was myself he was scolding, and atfirst felt as though I had been altogether in the wrong. 

"I did not mean to inconvenience you, " I said. 

"Well, if you did not suppose you were being impertinent, at least Idid! You are a cad, young sir!" he shouted in reply. 

"But what right have you to shout at me like that?" I exclaimed, feelingthat it was now HE that was insulting ME, and growing angry accordingly. 

"This much right, " he replied, "that I never allow myself to beoverlooked by any one, and that I always teach young fellows likeyourself their manners. What is your name, young sir, and where do youlive?"

At this I felt so hurt that my teeth chattered, and I felt as though Iwere choking. Yet all the while I was conscious of being in the wrong, and so, instead of offering any further rudeness to the offended one, humbly told him my name and address. 

"And MY name, young sir, " he returned, "is Kolpikoff, and I will troubleyou to be more polite to me in future. --However, You will hear from meagain" ("vous aurez de mes nouvelles"--the conversation had been carriedon wholly in French), was his concluding remark. 

To this I replied, "I shall be delighted, " with an infusion of as muchhauteur as I could muster into my tone. Then, turning on my heel, Ireturned with my cigarette--which had meanwhile gone out--to our ownroom. 

I said nothing, either to my brother or my friends, about what hadhappened (and the more so because they were at that moment engaged ina dispute of their own), but sat down in a corner to think over thestrange affair. The words, "You are a cad, young sir, " vexed me more andmore the longer that they sounded in my ears. My tipsiness was gone now, and, in considering my conduct during the dispute, the uncomfortablethought came over me that I had behaved like a coward. 

"Yet what right had he to attack me?" I reflected. "Why did he notsimply intimate to me that I was annoying him? After all, it may havebeen he that was in the wrong. Why, too, when he called me a young cad, did I not say to him, 'A cad, my good sir, is one who takes offence'? Orwhy did I not simply tell him to hold his tongue? That would have beenthe better course. Or why did I not challenge him to a duel? No, I didnone of those things, but swallowed his insults like a wretched coward. "

Still the words, "You are a cad, young sir, " kept sounding in my earswith maddening iteration. "I cannot leave things as they are, " Iat length decided as I rose to my feet with the fixed intentionof returning to the gentleman and saying something outrageous tohim--perhaps, also, of breaking the candelabrum over his head ifoccasion offered. Yet, though I considered the advisability of thislast measure with some pleasure, it was not without a good deal oftrepidation that I re-entered the main salon. As luck would have it, M. Kolpikoff was no longer there, but only a waiter engaged in clearing thetable. For a moment I felt like telling the waiter the whole story, andexplaining to him my innocence in the matter, but for some reason oranother I thought better of it, and once more returned, in the same hazycondition of mind, to our own room. 

"What has become of our DIPLOMAT?" Dubkoff was just saying. "Upon himnow hang the fortunes of Europe. "

"Oh, leave me alone, " I said, turning moodily away. Then, as I paced theroom, something made me begin to think that Dubkoff was not altogether agood fellow. "There is nothing very much to admire in his eternal jokesand his nickname of 'DIPLOMAT, '" I reflected. "All he thinks about is towin money from Woloda and to go and see his 'Auntie. ' There is nothingvery nice in all that. Besides, everything he says has a touch ofblackguardism in it, and he is forever trying to make people laugh. Inmy opinion he is simply stupid when he is not absolutely a brute. "I spent about five minutes in these reflections, and felt my enmitytowards Dubkoff continually increasing. For his part, he took no noticeof me, and that angered me the more. I actually felt vexed with Wolodaand Dimitri because they went on talking to him. 

"I tell you what, gentlemen: the DIPLOMAT ought to be christened, " saidDubkoff suddenly, with a glance and a smile which seemed to me derisive, and even treacherous. "Yet, O Lord, what a poor specimen he is!"

"You yourself ought to be christened, and you yourself are a sorryspecimen!" I retorted with an evil smile, and actually forgetting toaddress him as "thou. " [In Russian as in French, the second personsingular is the form of speech used between intimate friends. ]

This reply evidently surprised Dubkoff, but he turned awaygood-humouredly, and went on talking to Woloda and Dimitri. I tried toedge myself into the conversation, but, since I felt that I could notkeep it up, I soon returned to my corner, and remained there until weleft. 

When the bill had been paid and wraps were being put on, Dubkoff turnedto Dimitri and said: "Whither are Orestes and Pedalion going now? Home, I suppose, to talk about love. Well, let US go and see my dear Auntie. That will be far more entertaining than your sour company. "

"How dare you speak like that, and laugh at us?" I burst out as Iapproached him with clenched fists. "How dare you laugh at feelingswhich you do not understand? I will not have you do it! Hold yourtongue!" At this point I had to hold my own, for I did not know whatto say next, and was, moreover, out of breath with excitement. At firstDubkoff was taken aback, but presently he tried to laugh it off, and totake it as a joke. Finally I was surprised to see him look crestfallen, and lower his eyes. 

"I NEVER laugh at you or your feelings. It is merely my way ofspeaking, " he said evasively. 

"Indeed?" I cried; yet the next moment I felt ashamed of myself andsorry for him, since his flushed, downcast face had in it no otherexpression than one of genuine pain. 

"What is the matter with you?" said Woloda and Dimitri simultaneously. "No one was trying to insult you. "

"Yes, he DID try to insult me!" I replied. 

"What an extraordinary fellow your brother is!" said Dubkoff to Woloda. At that moment he was passing out of the door, and could not have heardwhat I said. Possibly I should have flung myself after him and offeredhim further insult, had it not been that just at that moment the waiterwho had witnessed my encounter with Kolpikoff handed me my greatcoat, and I at once quietened down--merely making such a pretence of havinghad a difference with Dimitri as was necessary to make my suddenappeasement appear nothing extraordinary. Next day, when I met Dubkoffat Woloda's, the quarrel was not raked up, yet he and I still addressedeach other as "you, " and found it harder than ever to look one anotherin the face. 

The remembrance of my scene with Kolpikoff--who, by the way, neversent me "de ses nouvelles, " either the following day or any dayafterwards--remained for years a keen and unpleasant memory. Even somuch as five years after it had happened I would begin fidgeting andmuttering to myself whenever I remembered the unavenged insult, and wasfain to comfort myself with the satisfaction of recollecting the sortof young fellow I had shown myself to be in my subsequent affair withDubkoff. In fact, it was only later still that I began to regard thematter in another light, and both to recall with comic appreciation mypassage of arms with Kolpikoff, and to regret the undeserved affrontwhich I had offered my good friend Dubkoff. 

When, at a later hour on the evening of the dinner, I told Dimitri ofmy affair with Kolpikoff, whose exterior I described in detail, he wasastounded. 

"That is the very man!" he cried. "Don't you know that this preciousKolpikoff is a known scamp and sharper, as well as, above all things, a coward, and that he was expelled from his regiment by his brotherofficers because, having had his face slapped, he would not fight? Buthow came you to let him get away?" he added, with a kindly smile andglance. "Surely he could not have said more to you than he did when hecalled you a cad?"

"No, " I admitted with a blush. 

"Well, it was not right, but there is no great harm done, " said Dimitriconsolingly. 

Long afterwards, when thinking the matter over at leisure, I suddenlycame to the conclusion that it was quite possible that Kolpikoff tookthe opportunity of vicariously wiping off upon me the slap in the facewhich he had once received, just as I myself took the opportunity ofvicariously wiping off upon the innocent Dubkoff the epithet "cad" whichKolpikoff had just applied to me. 

XVII. I GET READY TO PAY SOME CALLS

On awaking next morning my first thoughts were of the affair withKolpikoff. Once again I muttered to myself and stamped about the room, but there was no help for it. To-day was the last day that I was tospend in Moscow, and it was to be spent, by Papa's orders, in mypaying a round of calls which he had written out for me on a piece ofpaper--his first solicitude on our account being not so much for ourmorals or our education as for our due observance of the convenances. Onthe piece of paper was written in his swift, broken hand-writing: "(1)Prince Ivan Ivanovitch WITHOUT FAIL; (2) the Iwins WITHOUT FAIL; (3)Prince Michael; (4) the Princess Nechludoff and Madame Valakhina if youwish. " Of course I was also to call upon my guardian, upon the rector, and upon the professors. 

These last-mentioned calls, however, Dimitri advised me not to pay:saying that it was not only unnecessary to do so, but not the thing. However, there were the other visits to be got through. It was the firsttwo on the list--those marked as to be paid "WITHOUT FAIL"--that mostalarmed me. Prince Ivan Ivanovitch was a commander-in-chief, as wellas old, wealthy, and a bachelor. Consequently, I foresaw that vis-a-visconversation between him and myself--myself a sixteen-year-oldstudent!--was not likely to be interesting. As for the Iwins, they toowere rich--the father being a departmental official of high rank who hadonly on one occasion called at our house during my grandmother's time. Since her death, I had remarked that the younger Iwin had fought shy ofus, and seemed to give himself airs. The elder of the pair, I had heard, had now finished his course in jurisprudence, and gone to hold a postin St. Petersburg, while his brother Sergius (the former object of myworship) was also in St. Petersburg, as a great fat cadet in the Corpsof Pages. 

When I was a young man, not only did I dislike intercourse with peoplewho thought themselves above me, but such intercourse was, for me, anunbearable torture, owing partly to my constant dread of being snubbed, and partly to my straining every faculty of my intellect to prove tosuch people my independence. Yet, even if I failed to fulfil the latterpart of my father's instructions, I felt that I must carry outthe former. I paced my room and eyed my clothes ready disposed onchairs--the tunic, the sword, and the cap. Just as I was about to setforth, old Grap called to congratulate me, bringing with him Ilinka. Grap pere was a Russianised German and an intolerably effusive, sycophantic old man who was more often than not tipsy. As a rule, hevisited us only when he wanted to ask for something, and although Papasometimes entertained him in his study, old Grap never came to dinnerwith us. With his subserviency and begging propensities went such afaculty of good-humour and a power of making himself at home that everyone looked upon his attachment to us as a great honour. For my part, however, I never liked him, and felt ashamed when he was speaking. 

I was much put out by the arrival of these visitors, and made no effortto conceal the fact. Upon Ilinka I had been so used to look down, and heso used to recognise my right to do so, that it displeased me to thinkthat he was now as much a matriculated student as myself. In some wayhe appeared to me to have made a POINT of attaining that equality. Igreeted the pair coldly, and, without offering them any refreshment(since it went against the grain to do so, and I thought they could askfor anything, if they wanted it, without my first inviting them to statetheir requirements), gave orders for the drozhki to be got ready. Ilinkawas a good-natured, extremely moral, and far from stupid young fellow;yet, for all that, what people call a person of moods. That is to say, for no apparent reason he was for ever in some PRONOUNCED frame ofmind--now lachrymose, now frivolous, now touchy on the very smallestpoint. At the present moment he appeared to be in the last-named mood. He kept looking from his father to myself without speaking, exceptwhen directly addressed, at which times he smiled the self-deprecatory, forced smile under which he was accustomed to conceal his feelings, andmore especially that feeling of shame for his father which he must haveexperienced in our house. 

"So, Nicolas Petrovitch, " the old man said to me, following meeverywhere about the room as I went through the operation of dressing, while all the while his fat fingers kept turning over and over a silversnuff-box with which my grandmother had once presented me, "as soon asever I heard from my son that you had passed your examinations so well(though of course your abilities are well-known to everyone), I at oncecame to congratulate you, my dear boy. Why, I have carried you on myshoulders before now, and God knows that I love you as though you weremy own son. My Ilinka too has always been fond of you, and feels quiteat home with you. "

Meanwhile the said Ilinka remained sitting silently by the window, apparently absorbed in contemplation of my three-cornered cap, and everynow and then angrily muttering something in an undertone. 

"Now, I also wanted to ask you, Nicolas Petrovitch. " His father wenton, "whether my son did well in the examinations? He tells me that he isgoing to be in the same faculty as yourself, and that therefore you willbe able to keep an eye on him, and advise him, and so on. "

"Oh, yes, I suppose he passed well, " I replied, with a glance at Ilinka, who, conscious of my gaze, reddened violently and ceased to move hislips about. "And might he spend the day with you?" was the father's nextrequest, which he made with a deprecatory smile, as though he stood inactual awe of me, yet always keeping so close to me, wherever I moved, that the fumes of the drink and tobacco in which he had been indulgingwere constantly perceptible to my nostrils. I felt greatly vexed at hisplacing me in such a false position towards his son, as well as athis distracting my attention from what was, to me, a highly importantoperation--namely, the operation of dressing; while, over and above all, I was annoyed by the smell of liquor with which he followed me about. Accordingly, I said very coldly that I could not have the pleasure ofIlinka's company that day, since I should be out. 

"Ah! I suppose you are going to see your sister?" put in Ilinka with asmile, but without looking at me. "Well, I too have business toattend to. " At this I felt even more put out, as well as pricked withcompunction; so, to soften my refusal a little, I hastened to say thatthe reason why I should not be at home that day was that I had tocall upon the PRINCE Ivan Ivanovitch, the PRINCESS Kornakoff, and theMonsieur Iwin who held such an influential post, as well as, probably, to dine with the PRINCESS Nechludoff (for I thought that, on learningwhat important folk I was in the habit of mixing with, the Graps wouldno longer think it worth while to pretend to me). However, just as theywere leaving, I invited Ilinka to come and see me another day; but heonly murmured something unintelligible, and it was plain that he meantnever to set foot in the house again. 

When they had departed, I set off on my round of calls. Woloda, whom Ihad asked that morning to come with me, in order that I might not feelquite so shy as when altogether alone, had declined on the ground thatfor two brothers to be seen driving in one drozhki would appear sohorribly "proper. "

XVIII. THE VALAKHIN FAMILY

Accordingly I set off alone. My first call on the route lay at theValakhin mansion. It was now three years since I had seen Sonetchka, and my love for her had long become a thing of the past, yet therestill lingered in my heart a sort of clear, touching recollection of ourbygone childish affection. At intervals, also, during those three years, I had found myself recalling her memory with such force and vividnessthat I had actually shed tears, and imagined myself to be in love withher again, but those occasions had not lasted more than a few minutes ata time, and had been long in recurring. 

I knew that Sonetchka and her mother had been abroad--that, in fact, they had been so for the last two years. Also, I had heard that they hadbeen in a carriage accident, and that Sonetchka's face had been so badlycut with the broken glass that her beauty was marred. As I droveto their house, I kept recalling the old Sonetchka to my mind, andwondering what she would look like when I met her. Somehow I imaginedthat, after her two years' sojourn abroad, she would look very tall, with a beautiful waist, and, though sedate and imposing, extremelyattractive. Somehow, also, my imagination refused to picture her withher face disfigured with scars, but, on the contrary, since I had readsomewhere of a lover who remained true to his adored one in spite of herdisfigurement with smallpox, strove to imagine that I was in love withSonetchka, for the purpose of priding myself on holding to my troth inspite of her scars--Yet, as a matter of fact, I was not really in lovewith her during that drive, but having once stirred up in myself oldMEMORIES of love, felt PREPARED to fall into that condition, and themore so because, of late, my conscience had often been pricking me forhaving discarded so many of my old flames. 

The Valakhins lived in a neat little wooden mansion approached by acourtyard. I gained admittance by ringing a bell (then a rarity inMoscow), and was received by a mincing, smartly-attired page. He eithercould not or made no attempt to inform me whether there was any oneat home, but, leaving me alone in the dark hall, ran off down a stilldarker corridor. For a long time I waited in solitude in this gloomyplace, out of which, in addition to the front door and the corridor, there only opened a door which at the moment was closed. Rathersurprised at the dismal appearance of the house, I came to theconclusion that the reason was that its inmates were still abroad. Afterfive minutes, however, the door leading into the salon was opened by thepage boy, who then conducted me into a neat, but not richly furnished, drawing-room, where presently I was joined by Sonetchka. 

She was now seventeen years old, and very small and thin, as well as ofan unhealthy pallor of face. No scars at all were visible, however, andthe beautiful, prominent eyes and bright, cheerful smile were the sameas I had known and loved in my childhood. I had not expected her to lookat all like this, and therefore could not at once lavish upon her thesentiment which I had been preparing on the way. She gave me her hand inthe English fashion (which was then as much a novelty as a door-bell), and, bestowing upon mine a frank squeeze, sat down on the sofa by myside. 

"Ah! how glad I am to see you, my dear Nicolas!" she said as she lookedme in the face with an expression of pleasure so sincere that in thewords "my dear Nicolas" I caught the purely friendly rather than thepatronising note. To my surprise she seemed to me simpler, kinder, andmore sisterly after her foreign tour than she had been before it. True, I could now see that she had two small scars between her noseand temples, but her wonderful eyes and smile fitted in exactly with myrecollections, and shone as of old. 

"But how greatly you have changed!" she went on. "You are quite grown-upnow. And I-I-well, what do you think of me?"

"I should never have known you, " I replied, despite the fact that at themoment I was thinking that I should have known her anywhere and always. 

"Why? Am I grown so ugly?" she inquired with a movement of her head. 

"Oh, no, decidedly not!" I hastened to reply. "But you have grown tallerand older. As for being uglier, why, you are even--

"Yes, yes; never mind. Do you remember our dances and games, and St. Jerome, and Madame Dorat?" (As a matter of fact, I could not recollectany Madame Dorat, but saw that Sonetchka was being led away by the joyof her childish recollections, and mixing them up a little). "Ah! whata lovely time it was!" she went on--and once more there shone before methe same eyes and smile as I had always carried in my memory. While shehad been speaking, I had been thinking over my position at the presentmoment, and had come to the conclusion that I was in love with her. Theinstant, however, that I arrived at that result my careless, happy moodvanished, a mist seemed to arise before me which concealed even her eyesand smile, and, blushing hotly, I became tongue-tied and ill-at-ease. 

"But times are different now, " she went on with a sigh and a littlelifting of her eyebrows. "Everything seems worse than it used to be, andourselves too. Is it not so, Nicolas?"

I could return her no answer, but sat silently looking at her. 

"Where are those Iwins and Kornakoffs now? Do you remember them?"she continued, looking, I think, with some curiosity at my blushing, downcast countenance. "What splendid times we used to have!"

Still I could not answer her. 

The next moment, I was relieved from this awkward position by the entryof old Madame Valakhin into the room. Rising, I bowed, and straightwayrecovered my faculty of speech. On the other hand, an extraordinarychange now took place in Sonetchka. All her gaiety and bonhomiedisappeared, her smile became quite a different one, and, except for thepoint of her shortness of stature, she became just the lady from abroadwhom I had expected to find in her. Yet for this change there was noapparent reason, since her mother smiled every whit as pleasantly, andexpressed in her every movement just the same benignity, as of old. Seating herself in her arm-chair, the old lady signed to me to comeand sit beside her; after which she said something to her daughter inEnglish, and Sonetchka left the room--a fact which still further helpedto relieve me. Madame then inquired after my father and brother, andpassed on to speak of her great bereavement--the loss of her husband. Presently, however, she seemed to become sensible of the fact that I wasnot helping much in the conversation, for she gave me a look as much asto say: "If, now, my dear boy, you were to get up, to take your leave, and to depart, it would be well. " But a curious circumstance hadovertaken me. While she had been speaking of her bereavement, I hadrecalled to myself, not only the fact that I was in love, but theprobability that the mother knew of it: whereupon such a fit ofbashfulness had come upon me that I felt powerless to put any member ofmy body to its legitimate use. I knew that if I were to rise and walk Ishould have to think where to plant each foot, what to do with my head, what with my hands, and so on. In a word, I foresaw that I shouldbe very much as I had been on the night when I partook too freely ofchampagne, and therefore, since I felt uncertain of being able to managemyself if I DID rise, I ended by feeling UNABLE to rise. Meanwhile, Ishould say, Sonetchka had returned to the room with her work, andseated herself in a far corner--a corner whence, as I was neverthelesssensible, she could observe me. Madame must have felt some surprise asshe gazed at my crimson face and noted my complete immobility, but Idecided that it was better to continue sitting in that absurd positionthan to risk something unpleasant by getting up and walking. Thus I saton and on, in the hope that some unforeseen chance would deliver me frommy predicament. That unforeseen chance at length presented itself in theperson of an unforeseen young man, who entered the room with an airof being one of the household, and bowed to me politely as he did so:whereupon Madame rose, excused herself to me for having to speak withher "homme d'affaires, " and finally gave me a glance which said: "Well, if you DO mean to go on sitting there for ever, at least I can't driveyou away. " Accordingly, with a great effort I also rose, but, finding itimpossible to do any leave-taking, moved away towards the door, followedby the pitying glances of mother and daughter. All at once I stumbledover a chair, although it was lying quite out of my route: the reasonfor my stumbling being that my whole attention was centred upon nottripping over the carpet. Driving through the fresh air, however--whereat first I muttered and fidgeted about so much that Kuzma, my coachman, asked me what was the matter--I soon found this feeling pass away, and began to meditate quietly concerning my love for Sonetchka and herrelations with her mother, which had appeared to me rather strange. When, afterwards, I told my father that mother and daughter had notseemed on the best of terms with one another, he said:

"Yes, Madame leads the poor girl an awful life with her meanness. Yet, "added my father with a greater display of feeling than a man mightnaturally conceive for a mere relative, "she used to be such anoriginal, dear, charming woman! I cannot think what has made her changeso much. By the way, you didn't notice a secretary fellow about, didyou? Fancy a Russian lady having an affaire with a secretary!"

"Yes, I saw him, " I replied. 

"And was he at least good-looking?"

"No, not at all. "

"It is extraordinary!" concluded Papa, with a cough and an irritablehoist of his shoulder. 

"Well, I am in love!" was my secret thought to myself as I drove alongin my drozhki. 

XIX. THE KORNAKOFFS

MY second call on the route lay at the Kornakoffs', who lived on thefirst floor of a large mansion facing the Arbat. The staircase ofthe building looked extremely neat and orderly, yet in noway luxurious--being lined only with drugget pinned down withhighly-polished brass rods. Nowhere were there any flowers or mirrors tobe seen. The salon, too, with its polished floor, which I traversedon my way to the drawing-room, was decorated in the same cold, severe, unostentatious style. Everything in it looked bright and solid, butnot new, and pictures, flower-stands, and articles of bric-a-brac werewholly absent. In the drawing-room I found some of the young princessesseated, but seated with the sort of correct, "company" air about themwhich gave one the impression that they sat like that only when guestswere expected. 

"Mamma will be here presently, " the eldest of them said to me as sheseated herself by my side. For the next quarter of an hour, this younglady entertained me with such an easy flow of small-talk that theconversation never flagged a moment. Yet somehow she made so patentthe fact that she was just entertaining me that I felt not altogetherpleased. Amongst other things, she told me that their brother Stephen(whom they called Etienne, and who had been two years at the College ofCadets) had now received his commission. Whenever she spoke of him, and more particularly when she told me that he had flouted hismother's wishes by entering the Hussars, she assumed a nervous air, and immediately her sisters, sitting there in silence, also assumeda nervous air. When, again, she spoke of my grandmother's death, sheassumed a MOURNFUL air, and immediately the others all did the same. Finally, when she recalled how I had once struck St. Jerome and beenexpelled from the room, she laughed and showed her bad teeth, andimmediately all the other princesses laughed and showed their bad teethtoo. 

Next, the Princess-Mother herself entered--a little dried-up woman, witha wandering glance and a habit of always looking at somebody else whenshe was addressing one. Taking my hand, she raised her own to my lipsfor me to kiss it--which otherwise, not supposing it to be necessary, Ishould not have done. 

"How pleased I am to see you!" she said with her usual clearness ofarticulation as she gazed at her daughters. "And how like your motheryou look! Does he not, Lise?"

Lise assented, though I knew for a fact that I did not resemble mymother in the least. 

"And what a grown-up you have become! My Etienne, you will remember, isyour second cousin. No, not second cousin--what is it, Lise? My motherwas Barbara Dimitrievna, daughter of Dimitri Nicolaevitch, and yourgrandmother was Natalia Nicolaevna. "

"Then he is our THIRD cousin, Mamma, " said the eldest girl. 

"Oh, how you always confuse me!" was her mother's angry reply. "Notthird cousin, but COUSIN GERMAN--that is your relationship to Etienne. He is an officer now. Did you know it? It is not well that he shouldhave his own way too much. You young men need keeping in hand, or--!Well, you are not vexed because your old aunt tells you the plain truth?I always kept Etienne strictly in hand, for I found it necessary to doso. "

"Yes, that is how our relationship stands, " she went on. "Prince IvanIvanovitch is my uncle, and your late mother's uncle also. ConsequentlyI must have been your mother's first cousin--no, second cousin. Yes, that is it. Tell me, have you been to call on Prince Ivan yet?"

I said no, but that I was just going to. 

"Ah, is it possible?" she cried. "Why, you ought to have paid him thefirst call of all! Surely you know that he stands to you in the positionof a father? He has no children of his own, and his only heirs areyourself and my children. You ought to pay him all possible deference, both because of his age, and because of his position in the world, andbecause of everything else. I know that you young fellows of the presentday think nothing of relationships and are not fond of old men, yet doyou listen to me, your old aunt, for I am fond of you, and was fond ofyour mother, and had a great--a very great-liking and respect for yourgrandmother. You must not fail to call upon him on any account. "

I said that I would certainly go, and since my present call seemed tome to have lasted long enough, I rose, and was about to depart, but sherestrained me. 

"No, wait a minute, " she cried. "Where is your father, Lise? Go and tellhim to come here. He will be so glad to see you, " she added, turning tome. 

Two minutes later Prince Michael entered. He was a short, thick-setgentleman, very slovenly dressed and ill-shaven, yet wearing such an airof indifference that he looked almost a fool. He was not in the leastglad to see me--at all events he did not intimate that he was; but thePrincess (who appeared to stand in considerable awe of him) hastened tosay:

"Is not Woldemar here" (she seemed to have forgotten my name) "exactlylike his mother?" and she gave her husband a glance which forced himto guess what she wanted. Accordingly he approached me with his usualpassionless, half-discontented expression, and held out to me anunshaven cheek to kiss. 

"Why, you are not dressed yet, though you have to go out soon!" was thePrincess's next remark to him in the angry tone which she habituallyemployed in conversation with her domestics. "It will only mean youroffending some one again, and trying to set people against you. "

"In a moment, in a moment, mother, " said Prince Michael, and departed. Ialso made my bows and departed. 

This was the first time I had heard of our being related to Prince IvanIvanovitch, and the news struck me unpleasantly. 

XX. THE IWINS

As for the prospect of my call upon the Prince, it seemed even moreunpleasant. However, the order of my route took me first to the Iwins, who lived in a large and splendid mansion in Tverskaia Street. It wasnot without some nervousness that I entered the great portico where aSwiss major-domo stood armed with his staff of office. 

To my inquiry as to whether any one was at home he replied: "Whom do youwish to see, sir? The General's son is within. "

"And the General himself?" I asked with forced assurance. 

"I must report to him your business first. What may it be, sir?" saidthe major-domo as he rang a bell. Immediately the gaitered legs of afootman showed themselves on the staircase above; whereupon I wasseized with such a fit of nervousness that I hastily bid the lacquey saynothing about my presence to the General, since I would first see hisson. By the time I had reached the top of the long staircase, I seemedto have grown extremely small (metaphorically, I mean, not actually), and had very much the same feeling within me as had possessed my soulwhen my drozhki drew up to the great portico, namely, a feeling asthough drozhki, horse, and coachman had all of them grown extremelysmall too. I found the General's son lying asleep on a sofa, with anopen book before him. His tutor, Monsieur Frost, under whose care hestill pursued his studies at home, had entered behind me with a sortof boyish tread, and now awoke his pupil. Iwin evinced no particularpleasure at seeing me, while I also seemed to notice that, while talkingto me, he kept looking at my eyebrows. Although he was perfectly polite, I conceived that he was "entertaining" me much as the Princess Valakhinhad done, and that he not only felt no particular liking for me, buteven that he considered my acquaintance in no way necessary to one whopossessed his own circle of friends. All this arose out of the idea thathe was regarding my eyebrows. In short, his bearing towards me appearedto be (as I recognised with an awkward sensation) very much the same asmy own towards Ilinka Grap. I began to feel irritated, and to interpretevery fleeting glance which he cast at Monsieur Frost as a mute inquiry:"Why has this fellow come to see me?"

After some conversation he remarked that his father and mother were athome. Would I not like to visit them too?

"First I will go and dress myself, " he added as he departed to anotherroom, notwithstanding that he had seemed to be perfectly well dressed(in a new frockcoat and white waistcoat) in the present one. A fewminutes later he reappeared in his University uniform, buttoned up tothe chin, and we went downstairs together. The reception rooms throughwhich we passed were lofty and of great size, and seemed to be richlyfurnished with marble and gilt ornaments, chintz-covered settees, anda number of mirrors. Presently Madame Iwin met us, and we went intoa little room behind the drawing-room, where, welcoming me in veryfriendly fashion, she seated herself by my side, and began to inquireafter my relations. 

Closer acquaintance with Madame (whom I had seen only twice before, andthat but for a moment on each occasion) impressed me favourably. Shewas tall, thin, and very pale, and looked as though she suffered fromchronic depression and fatigue. Yet, though her smile was a sad one, itwas very kind, and her large, mournful eyes, with a slight cast in theirvision, added to the pathos and attractiveness of her expression. Herattitude, while not precisely that of a hunchback, made her whole formdroop, while her every movement expressed languor. Likewise, though herspeech was deliberate, the timbre of her voice, and the manner in whichshe lisped her r's and l's, were very pleasing to the ear. Finally, shedid not "ENTERTAIN" me. Unfortunately, the answers which I returned toher questions concerning my relations seemed to afford her a painfulinterest, and to remind her of happier days: with the result that when, presently, her son left the room, she gazed at me in silence for amoment, and then burst into tears. As I sat there in mute bewilderment, I could not conceive what I had said to bring this about. At first Ifelt sorry for her as she sat there weeping with downcast eyes. Next Ibegan to think to myself: "Ought I not to try and comfort her, and howought that to be done?" Finally, I began to feel vexed with her forplacing me in such an awkward position. "Surely my appearance is not somoving as all that?" I reflected. "Or is she merely acting like this tosee what I shall do under the circumstances?"

"Yet it would not do for me to go, " I continued to myself, "for thatwould look too much as though I were fleeing to escape her tears. "Accordingly I began fidgeting about on my seat, in order to remind herof my presence. 

"Oh, how foolish of me!" at length she said, as she gazed at me for amoment and tried to smile. "There are days when one weeps for no reasonwhatever. " She felt about for her handkerchief, and then burst outweeping more violently than before. 

"Oh dear! How silly of me to be for ever crying like this! Yet I was sofond of your mother! We were such friends! We-we--"

At this point she found her handkerchief, and, burying her face in it, went on crying. Once more I found myself in the same protracted dilemma. Though vexed, I felt sorry for her, since her tears appeared to begenuine--even though I also had an idea that it was not so much for mymother that she was weeping as for the fact that she was unhappy, andhad known happier days. How it would all have ended I do not know, hadnot her son reappeared and said that his father desired to see her. Thereupon she rose, and was just about to leave the room, when theGeneral himself entered. He was a small, grizzled, thick-set man, withbushy black eyebrows, a grey, close-cropped head, and a very stern, haughty expression of countenance. 

I rose and bowed to him, but the General (who was wearing three starson his green frockcoat) not only made no response to my salutation, butscarcely even looked at me; so that all at once I felt as though I werenot a human being at all, but only some negligible object such as asettee or window; or, if I were a human being, as though I were quiteindistinguishable from such a negligible object. 

"Then you have not yet written to the Countess, my dear?" he said to hiswife in French, and with an imperturbable, yet determined, expression onhis countenance. 

"Good-bye, Monsieur Irtenieff, " Madame said to me, in her turn, as shemade a proud gesture with her head and looked at my eyebrows just as herson had done. I bowed to her, and again to her husband, but my secondsalutation made no more impression upon him than if a window had justbeen opened or closed. Nevertheless the younger Iwin accompanied me tothe door, and on the way told me that he was to go to St. PetersburgUniversity, since his father had been appointed to a post in that city(and young Iwin named a very high office in the service). 

"Well, his Papa may do whatsoever he likes, " I muttered to myself as Iclimbed into the drozhki, "but at all events I will never set foot inthat house again. His wife weeps and looks at me as though I were theembodiment of woe, while that old pig of a General does not even giveme a bow. However, I will get even with him some day. " How I meant to dothat I do not know, but my words nevertheless came true. 

Afterwards, I frequently found it necessary to remember the advice ofmy father when he said that I must cultivate the acquaintanceship of theIwins, and not expect a man in the position of General Iwin to pay anyattention to a boy like myself. But I had figured in that position longenough. 

XXI. PRINCE IVAN IVANOVITCH

"Now for the last call--the visit to Nikitskaia Street, " I said toKuzma, and we started for Prince Ivan Ivanovitch's mansion. 

Towards the end, a round of calls usually brings one a certain amountof self-assurance: consequently I was approaching the Prince's abode inquite a tranquil frame of mind, when suddenly I remembered the PrincessKornakoff's words that I was his heir, and at the same moment caughtsight of two carriages waiting at the portico. Instantly, my formernervousness returned. 

Both the old major-domo who opened the door to me, and the footman whotook my coat, and the two male and three female visitors whom I found inthe drawing-room, and, most of all, Prince Ivan Ivanovitch himself (whomI found clad in a "company" frockcoat and seated on a sofa) seemed tolook at me as at an HEIR, and so to eye me with ill-will. Yet the Princewas very gracious and, after kissing me (that is to say, after pressinghis cold, dry, flabby lips to my cheek for a second), asked me aboutmy plans and pursuits, jested with me, inquired whether I still wroteverses of the kind which I used to indite in honour of my grandmother'sbirthdays, and invited me to dine with him that day. Nevertheless, inproportion as he grew the kinder, the more did I feel persuaded that hiscivility was only intended to conceal from me the fact that he dislikedthe idea of my being his heir. He had a custom (due to his false teeth, of which his mouth possessed a complete set) of raising his upper lip alittle as he spoke, and producing a slight whistling sound from it; andwhenever, on the present occasion, he did so it seemed to me that he wassaying to himself: "A boy, a boy--I know it! And my heir, too--my heir!"

When we were children, we had been used to calling the Prince "dearUncle;" but now, in my capacity of heir, I could not bring my tongueto the phrase, while to say "Your Highness, " as did one of the othervisitors, seemed derogatory to my self-esteem. Consequently, neveronce during that visit did I call him anything at all. The personage, however, who most disturbed me was the old Princess who shared with methe position of prospective inheritor, and who lived in the Prince'shouse. While seated beside her at dinner, I felt firmly persuaded thatthe reason why she would not speak to me was that she disliked me forbeing her co-heir, and that the Prince, for his part, paid no attentionto our side of the table for the reason that the Princess and myselfhoped to succeed him, and so were alike distasteful in his sight. 

"You cannot think how I hated it all!" I said to Dimitrieff the sameevening, in a desire to make a parade of disliking the notion of beingan heir (somehow I thought it the thing to do). "You cannot think howI loathed the whole two hours that I spent there!--Yet he is afine-looking old fellow, and was very kind to me, " I added--wishing, among other things, to disabuse my friend of any possible idea that myloathing had arisen out of the fact that I had felt so small. "It isonly the idea that people may be classing me with the Princess who liveswith him, and who licks the dust off his boots. He is a wonderful oldman, and good and considerate to everybody, but it is awful to see howhe treats the Princess. Money is a detestable thing, and ruins all humanrelations. 

"Do you know, I think it would be far the best thing for me to havean open explanation with the Prince, " I went on; "to tell him that Irespect him as a man, but think nothing of being his heir, and thatI desire him to leave me nothing, since that is the only condition onwhich I can, in future, visit his house. "

Instead of bursting out laughing when I said this, Dimitri ponderedawhile in silence, and then answered:

"You are wrong. Either you ought to refrain from supposing that peoplemay be classing you with this Princess of whom you speak, or, if youDO suppose such a thing, you ought to suppose further that people arethinking what you yourself know quite well--namely, that such thoughtsare so utterly foreign to your nature that you despise them and wouldnever make them a basis for action. Suppose, however, that people DOsuppose you to suppose such a thing--Well, to sum up, " he added, feelingthat he was getting a little mixed in his pronouncements, "you had muchbetter not suppose anything of the kind. "

My friend was perfectly right, though it was not until long, longafterwards that experience of life taught me the evil that comes ofthinking--still worse, of saying--much that seems very fine; taught methat there are certain thoughts which should always be kept to oneself, since brave words seldom go with brave deeds. I learnt then thatthe mere fact of giving utterance to a good intention often makes itdifficult, nay, impossible, to carry that good intention intoeffect. Yet how is one to refrain from giving utterance to the brave, self-sufficient impulses of youth? Only long afterwards does oneremember and regret them, even as one incontinently plucks a flowerbefore its blooming, and subsequently finds it lying crushed andwithered on the ground. 

The very next morning I, who had just been telling my friend Dimitrithat money corrupts all human relations, and had (as we have seen)squandered the whole of my cash on pictures and Turkish pipes, accepteda loan of twenty roubles which he suggested should pay for my travellingexpenses into the country, and remained a long while thereafter in hisdebt!

XXII. INTIMATE CONVERSATION WITH MY FRIEND

THIS conversation of ours took place in a phaeton on the way toKuntsevo. Dimitri had invited me in the morning to go with him to hismother's, and had called for me after luncheon; the idea being thatI should spend the evening, and perhaps also pass the night, at thecountry-house where his family lived. Only when we had left the city andexchanged its grimy streets and the unbearably deafening clatter ofits pavements for the open vista of fields and the subdued grinding ofcarriage-wheels on a dusty high road (while the sweet spring airand prospect enveloped us on every side) did I awake from the newimpressions and sensations of freedom into which the past two days hadplunged me. Dimitri was in his kind and sociable mood. That is to say, he was neither frowning nor blinking nervously nor straightening hisneck in his collar. For my own part, I was congratulating myself onthose noble sentiments which I have expressed above, in the belief thatthey had led him to overlook my shameful encounter with Kolpikoff, andto refrain from despising me for it. Thus we talked together on manyan intimate subject which even a friend seldom mentions to a friend. Hetold me about his family whose acquaintance I had not yet made--abouthis mother, his aunt, and his sister, as also about her whom Woloda andDubkoff believed to be his "flame, " and always spoke of as "the ladywith the chestnut locks. " Of his mother he spoke with a certain cold andformal commendation, as though to forestall any further mention ofher; his aunt he extolled enthusiastically, though with a touch ofcondescension in his tone; his sister he scarcely mentioned at all, asthough averse to doing so in my presence; but on the subject of "thelady with the chestnut locks" (whose real name was Lubov Sergievna, and who was a grown-up young lady living on a family footing with theNechludoffs) he discoursed with animation. 

"Yes, she is a wonderful woman, " he said with a conscious reddening ofthe face, yet looking me in the eyes with dogged temerity. "True, sheis no longer young, and even rather elderly, as well as by no meansgood-looking; but as for loving a mere featherhead, a mere beauty--well, I never could understand that, for it is such a silly thing to do. "(Dimitri said this as though he had just discovered a most novel andextraordinary truth. ) "I am certain, too, that such a soul, such a heartand principles, as are hers are not to be found elsewhere in the worldof the present day. " (I do not know whence he had derived the habitof saying that few good things were discoverable in the world of thepresent day, but at all events he loved to repeat the expression, and itsomehow suited him. )

"Only, I am afraid, " he went on quietly, after thus annihilating allsuch men as were foolish enough to admire mere beauty, "I am afraidthat you will not understand or realise her quickly. She is modest, even secretive, and by no means fond of exhibiting her beautiful andsurprising qualities. Now, my mother--who, as you will see, is a noble, sensible woman--has known Lubov Sergievna, for many years; yet even tothis day she does not properly understand her. Shall I tell you why Iwas out of temper last evening when you were questioning me? Well, youmust know that the day before yesterday Lubov asked me to accompany herto Ivan Yakovlevitch's (you have heard of him, I suppose? the fellow whoseems to be mad, but who, in reality, is a very remarkable man). Well, Lubov is extremely religious, and understands Ivan Yakovlevitch to thefull. She often goes to see him, and converses with him, and giveshim money for the poor--money which she has earned herself. She is amarvellous woman, as you will see. Well, I went with her to Ivan's, and felt very grateful to her for having afforded me the opportunityof exchanging a word with so remarkable a man; but my mother could notunderstand our action at all, and discerned in it only superstition. Consequently, last night she and I quarrelled for the first time in ourlives. A very bitter one it was, too, " he concluded, with a convulsiveshrug of his shoulders, as though the mention of it recalled thefeelings which he had then experienced. 

"And what are your intentions about it all?" I inquired, to diverthim from such a disagreeable recollection. "That is to say, how do youimagine it is going to turn out? Do you ever speak to her about thefuture, or about how your love or friendship are going to end?"

"Do you mean, do I intend to marry her eventually?" he inquired, in histurn, with a renewed blush, but turning himself round and looking meboldly in the face. 

"Yes, certainly, " I replied as I settled myself down. "We are both of usgrown-up, as well as friends, so we may as well discuss our future lifeas we drive along. No one could very well overlook or overhear us now. "

"Why should I NOT marry her?" he went on in response to my reassuringreply. "It is my aim--as it should be the aim of every honourableman--to be as good and as happy as possible; and with her, if sheshould still be willing when I have become more independent, I should behappier and better than with the greatest beauty in the world. "

Absorbed in such conversation, we hardly noticed that we wereapproaching Kuntsevo, or that the sky was becoming overcast andbeginning to threaten rain. On the right, the sun was slowly sinkingbehind the ancient trees of the Kuntsevo park--one half of its brilliantdisc obscured with grey, subluminous cloud, and the other half sendingforth spokes of flaming light which threw the old trees into strikingrelief as they stood there with their dense crowns of green showingagainst a blue patch of sky. The light and shimmer of that patchcontrasted sharply with the heavy pink cloud which lay massed abovea young birch-tree visible on the horizon before us, while, a littlefurther to the right, the parti-coloured roofs of the Kuntsevo mansioncould be seen projecting above a belt of trees and undergrowth--one sideof them reflecting the glittering rays of the sun, and the other sideharmonising with the more louring portion of the heavens. Below us, andto the left, showed the still blue of a pond where it lay surroundedwith pale-green laburnums--its dull, concave-looking depths repeatingthe trees in more sombre shades of colour over the surface of a hillock. Beyond the water spread the black expanse of a ploughed field, with thestraight line of a dark-green ridge by which it was bisected running farinto the distance, and there joining the leaden, threatening horizon. 

On either side of the soft road along which the phaeton was pursuing theeven tenour of its way, bright-green, tangled, juicy belts of rye weresprouting here and there into stalk. Not a motion was perceptible in theair, only a sweet freshness, and everything looked extraordinarily clearand bright. Near the road I could see a little brown path winding itsway among the dark-green, quarter-grown stems of rye, and somehow thatpath reminded me vividly of our village, and somehow (through someconnection of thought) the idea of that village reminded me vividly ofSonetchka, and so of the fact that I was in love with her. 

Notwithstanding my fondness for Dimitri and the pleasure which hisfrankness had afforded me, I now felt as though I desired to hear nomore about his feelings and intentions with regard to Lubov Sergievna, but to talk unstintedly about my own love for Sonetchka, who seemed tome an object of affection of a far higher order. Yet for some reasonor another I could not make up my mind to tell him straight out howsplendid it would seem when I had married Sonetchka and we were livingin the country--of how we should have little children who would crawlabout the floor and call me Papa, and of how delighted I should be whenhe, Dimitri, brought his wife, Lubov Sergievna, to see us, wearing anexpensive gown. Accordingly, instead of saying all that, I pointed tothe setting sun, and merely remarked: "Look, Dimitri! How splendid!"

To this, however, Dimitri made no reply, since he was evidentlydissatisfied at my answering his confession (which it had cost him muchto make) by directing his attention to natural objects (to which hewas, in general, indifferent). Upon him Nature had an effect altogetherdifferent to what she had upon myself, for she affected him rather byher industry than by her beauty--he loved her rather with his intellectthan with his senses. 

"I am absolutely happy, " I went on, without noticing that he wasaltogether taken up with his own thoughts and oblivious of anything thatI might be saying. "You will remember how told you about a girl withwhom I used to be in love when was a little boy? Well, I saw heragain only this morning, and am now infatuated with her. " Then I toldhim--despite his continued expression of indifference--about my love, and about all my plans for my future connubial happiness. Strangelyenough, no sooner had I related in detail the whole strength of myfeelings than I instantly became conscious of its diminution. 

The rain overtook us just as we were turning into the avenue ofbirch-trees which led to the house, but it did not really wet us. I onlyknew that it was raining by the fact that I felt a drop fall, first onmy nose, and then on my hand, and heard something begin to patter uponthe young, viscous leaves of the birch-trees as, drooping their curlybranches overhead, they seemed to imbibe the pure, shining drops with anavidity which filled the whole avenue with scent. We descended from thecarriage, so as to reach the house the quicker through the garden, butfound ourselves confronted at the entrance-door by four ladies, two ofwhom were knitting, one reading a book, and the fourth walking to andfro with a little dog. Thereupon, Dimitri began to present me to hismother, sister, and aunt, as well as to Lubov Sergievna. For a momentthey remained where they were, but almost instantly the rain becameheavier. 

"Let us go into the verandah; you can present him to us there, " said thelady whom I took to be Dimitri's mother, and we all of us ascended theentrance-steps. 

XXIII. THE NECHLUDOFFS

From the first, the member of this company who struck me the most wasLubov Sergievna, who, holding a lapdog in her arms and wearing stoutlaced boots, was the last of the four ladies to ascend the staircase, and twice stopped to gaze at me intently and then kiss her little dog. She was anything but good-looking, since she was red-haired, thin, short, and slightly crooked. What made her plain face all the plainerwas the queer way in which her hair was parted to one side (it lookedlike the wigs which bald women contrive for themselves). However much Ishould have liked to applaud my friend, I could not find a single comelyfeature in her. Even her brown eyes, though expressive of good-humour, were small and dull--were, in fact, anything but pretty; while her hands(those most characteristic of features), were though neither large norill-shaped, coarse and red. 

As soon as we reached the verandah, each of the ladies, except Dimitri'ssister Varenika--who also had been regarding me attentively out ofher large, dark-grey eyes--said a few words to me before resuming heroccupation, while Varenika herself began to read aloud from a book whichshe held on her lap and steadied with her finger. 

The Princess Maria Ivanovna was a tall, well-built woman of forty. Tojudge by the curls of half-grey hair which descended below her cap onemight have taken her for more, but as soon as ever one observed thefresh, extraordinarily tender, and almost wrinkleless face, as wellas, most of all, the lively, cheerful sparkle of the large eyes, oneinvoluntarily took her for less. Her eyes were black and very frank, herlips thin and slightly severe, her nose regular and slightly inclined tothe left, and her hands ringless, large, and almost like those of a man, but with finely tapering fingers. She wore a dark-blue dress fastenedto the throat and sitting closely to her firm, still youthful waist--awaist which she evidently pinched. Lastly, she held herself veryupright, and was knitting a garment of some kind. As soon as I steppedon to the verandah she took me by the hand, drew me to her as thoughwishing to scrutinise me more closely, and said, as she gazed at me withthe same cold, candid glance as her son's, that she had long known meby report from Dimitri, and that therefore, in order to make myacquaintance thoroughly, she had invited me to stay these twenty-fourhours in her house. 

"Do just as you please here, " she said, "and stand on no ceremonywhatever with us, even as we shall stand on none with you. Pray walk, read, listen, or sleep as the mood may take you. "

Sophia Ivanovna was an old maid and the Princess's younger sister, though she looked the elder of the two. She had that exceedinglyoverstuffed appearance which old maids always present who are shortof stature but wear corsets. It seemed as though her healthiness hadshifted upwards to the point of choking her, her short, fat handswould not meet below her projecting bust, and the line of her waist wasscarcely visible at all. 

Notwithstanding that the Princess Maria Ivanovna had black hair andeyes, while Sophia Ivanovna had white hair and large, vivacious, tranquilly blue eyes (a rare combination), there was a great likenessbetween the two sisters, for they had the same expression, nose, andlips. The only difference was that Sophia's nose and lips were a triflecoarser than Maria's, and that, when she smiled, those features inclinedtowards the right, whereas Maria's inclined towards the left. Sophia, tojudge by her dress and coiffure, was still youthful at heart, and wouldnever have displayed grey curls, even if she had possessed them. Yet atfirst her glance and bearing towards me seemed very proud, and made menervous, whereas I at once felt at home with the Princess. Perhaps itwas only Sophia's stoutness and a certain resemblance to portraits ofCatherine the Great that gave her, in my eyes, a haughty aspect, but atall events I felt quite intimidated when she looked at me intently andsaid, "Friends of our friends are our friends also. " I became reassuredand changed my opinion about her only when, after saying those words, she opened her mouth and sighed deeply. It may be that she owed herhabit of sighing after every few words--with a great distention of themouth and a slight drooping of her large blue eyes--to her stoutness, yet it was none the less one which expressed so much good-humour thatI at once lost all fear of her, and found her actually attractive. Hereyes were charming, her voice pleasant and musical, and even the flowinglines of her fullness seemed to my youthful vision not wholly lacking inbeauty. 

I had imagined that Lubov Sergievna, as my friend's friend, would atonce say something friendly and familiar to me; yet, after gazing at mefixedly for a while, as though in doubt whether the remark she was aboutto make to me would not be too friendly, she at length asked me whatfaculty I was in. After that she stared at me as before, in evidenthesitation as to whether or not to say something civil and familiar, until, remarking her perplexity, I besought her with a look to speakfreely. Yet all she then said was, "They tell me the Universities payvery little attention to science now, " and turned away to call herlittle dog. 

All that evening she spoke only in disjointed fragments of thiskind--fragments which had no connection either with the point or withone another; yet I had such faith in Dimitri, and he so often keptlooking from her to me with an expression which mutely asked me, "Now, what do you think of that?" that, though I entirely failed to persuademyself that in Lubov Sergievna there was anything to speak of, I couldnot bear to express the thought, even to myself. 

As for the last member of the family, Varenika, she was a well-developedgirl of sixteen. The only good features in her were a pair of dark-greyeyes, --which, in their expression of gaiety mingled with quietattention, greatly resembled those of her aunt--a long coil of flaxenhair, and extremely delicate, beautiful hands. 

"I expect, Monsieur Nicolas, you find it wearisome to hear a story begunfrom the middle?" said Sophia Ivanovna with her good-natured sigh as sheturned over some pieces of clothing which she was sewing. The readingaloud had ceased for the moment because Dimitri had left the room onsome errand or another. 

"Or perhaps you have read Rob Roy before?" she added. 

At that period I thought it incumbent upon me, in virtue of my student'suniform, to reply in a very "clever and original" manner to everyquestion put to me by people whom I did not know very well, and regardedsuch short, clear answers as "Yes, " "No, " "I like it, " or "I do not carefor it, " as things to be ashamed of. Accordingly, looking down at my newand fashionably-cut trousers and the glittering buttons of my tunic, Ireplied that I had never read Rob Roy, but that it interested me greatlyto hear it, since I preferred to read books from the middle rather thanfrom the beginning. 

"It is twice as interesting, " I added with a self-satisfied smirk;"for then one can guess what has gone before as well as what is to comeafter. "

The Princess smiled what I thought was a forced smile, but one which Idiscovered later to be her only one. 

"Well, perhaps that is true, " she said. "But tell me, Nicolas (you willnot be offended if I drop the Monsieur)--tell me, are you going to be intown long? When do you go away?"

"I do not know quite. Perhaps to-morrow, or perhaps not for some whileyet, " I replied for some reason or another, though I knew perfectly wellthat in reality we were to go to-morrow. 

"I wish you could stop longer, both for your own sake and forDimitri's, " she said in a meditative manner. "At your age friendship isa weak thing. "

I felt that every one was looking at me, and waiting to see what Ishould say--though certainly Varenika made a pretence of looking ather aunt's work. I felt, in fact, as though I were being put through anexamination, and that it behoved me to figure in it as well as possible. 

"Yes, to ME Dimitri's friendship is most useful, " I replied, "but to HIMmine cannot be of any use at all, since he is a thousand times betterthan I. " (Dimitri could not hear what I said, or I should have fearedhis detecting the insincerity of my words. )

Again the Princess smiled her unnatural, yet characteristically natural, smile. 

"Just listen to him!" she said. "But it is YOU who are the littlemonster of perfection. "

"'Monster of perfection, '" I thought to myself. "That is splendid. Imust make a note of it. "

"Yet, to dismiss yourself, he has been extraordinarily clever in thatquarter, " she went on in a lower tone (which pleased me somehow) as sheindicated Lubov Sergievna with her eyes, "since he has discovered in ourpoor little Auntie" (such was the pet name which they gave Lubov) "allsorts of perfections which I, who have known her and her little dog fortwenty years, had never yet suspected. Varenika, go and tell them tobring me a glass of water, " she added, letting her eyes wander again. Probably she had bethought her that it was too soon, or not entirelynecessary, to let me into all the family secrets. "Yet no--let HIM go, for he has nothing to do, while you are reading. Pray go to the door, myfriend, " she said to me, "and walk about fifteen steps down the passage. Then halt and call out pretty loudly, 'Peter, bring Maria Ivanovna aglass of iced water'"--and she smiled her curious smile once more. 

"I expect she wants to say something about me in my absence, " I thoughtto myself as I left the room. "I expect she wants to remark that she cansee very clearly that I am a very, very clever young man. "

Hardly had I taken a dozen steps when I was overtaken by SophiaIvanovna, who, though fat and short of breath, trod with surprisinglightness and agility. 

"Merci, mon cher, " she said. "I will go and tell them myself. "

XXIV. LOVE

SOPHIA IVANOVNA, as I afterwards came to know her, was one of thoserare, young-old women who are born for family life, but to whom thathappiness has been denied by fate. Consequently all that store of theirlove which should have been poured out upon a husband and childrenbecomes pent up in their hearts, until they suddenly decide to let itoverflow upon a few chosen individuals. Yet so inexhaustible is thatstore of old maids' love that, despite the number of individuals soselected, there still remains an abundant surplus of affection whichthey lavish upon all by whom they are surrounded--upon all, good or bad, whom they may chance to meet in their daily life. 

Of love there are three kinds--love of beauty, the love which deniesitself, and practical love. 

Of the desire of a young man for a young woman, as well as of thereverse instance, I am not now speaking, for of such tendresses I amwary, seeing that I have been too unhappy in my life to have been ableever to see in such affection a single spark of truth, but rather alying pretence in which sensuality, connubial relations, money, andthe wish to bind hands or to unloose them have rendered feeling such acomplex affair as to defy analysis. Rather am I speaking of that lovefor a human being which, according to the spiritual strength of itspossessor, concentrates itself either upon a single individual, upona few, or upon many--of love for a mother, a father, a brother, little children, a friend, a compatriot--of love, in short, for one'sneighbour. 

Love of beauty consists in a love of the sense of beauty and of itsexpression. People who thus love conceive the object of their affectionto be desirable only in so far as it arouses in them that pleasurablesensation of which the consciousness and the expression soothes thesenses. They change the object of their love frequently, since theirprincipal aim consists in ensuring that the voluptuous feeling of theiradoration shall be constantly titillated. To preserve in themselvesthis sensuous condition, they talk unceasingly, and in the most elegantterms, on the subject of the love which they feel, not only for itsimmediate object, but also for objects upon which it does not touch atall. This country of ours contains many such individuals--individualsof that well-known class who, cultivating "the beautiful, " not onlydiscourse of their cult to all and sundry, but speak of it pre-eminentlyin FRENCH. It may seem a strange and ridiculous thing to say, but I amconvinced that among us we have had in the past, and still have, alarge section of society--notably women--whose love for their friends, husbands, or children would expire to-morrow if they were debarred fromdilating upon it in the tongue of France!

Love of the second kind--renunciatory love--consists in a yearningto undergo self-sacrifice for the object beloved, regardless of anyconsideration whether such self-sacrifice will benefit or injure theobject in question. "There is no evil which I would not endure to showboth the world and him or her whom I adore my devotion. " There we havethe formula of this kind of love. People who thus love never lookfor reciprocity of affection, since it is a finer thing to sacrificeyourself for one who does not comprehend you. Also, they are alwayspainfully eager to exaggerate the merits of their sacrifice; usuallyconstant in their love, for the reason that they would find it hard toforego the kudos of the deprivations which they endure for the objectbeloved; always ready to die, to prove to him or to her the entirety oftheir devotion; but sparing of such small daily proofs of their loveas call for no special effort of self-immolation. They do not much carewhether you eat well, sleep well, keep your spirits up, or enjoy goodhealth, nor do they ever do anything to obtain for you those blessingsif they have it in their power; but, should you be confronting a bullet, or have fallen into the water, or stand in danger of being burnt, orhave had your heart broken in a love affair--well, for all thesethings they are prepared if the occasion should arise. Moreover, peopleaddicted to love of such a self-sacrificing order are invariablyproud of their love, exacting, jealous, distrustful, and--strange totell--anxious that the object of their adoration should incur perils (sothat they may save it from calamity, and console it thereafter) and evenbe vicious (so that they may purge it of its vice). 

Suppose, now, that you are living in the country with a wife who lovesyou in this self-sacrificing manner. You may be healthy and contented, and have occupations which interest you, while, on the other hand, your wife may be too weak to superintend the household work (which, in consequence, will be left to the servants), or to look after thechildren (who, in consequence, will be left to the nurses), or to puther heart into any work whatsoever: and all because she loves nobody andnothing but yourself. She may be patently ill, yet she will say not aword to you about it, for fear of distressing you. She may be patentlyennuyee, yet for your sake she will be prepared to be so for the restof her life. She may be patently depressed because you stick sopersistently to your occupations (whether sport, books, farming, stateservice, or anything else) and see clearly that they are doing you harm;yet, for all that, she will keep silence, and suffer it to be so. Yet, should you but fall sick--and, despite her own ailments and your prayersthat she will not distress herself in vain, your loving wife will remainsitting inseparably by your bedside. Every moment you will feel hersympathetic gaze resting upon you and, as it were, saying: "There! Itold you so, but it is all one to me, and I shall not leave you. " In themorning you maybe a little better, and move into another room. The room, however, will be insufficiently warmed or set in order; the soup whichalone you feel you could eat will not have been cooked; nor will anymedicine have been sent for. Yet, though worn out with night watching, your loving wife will continue to regard you with an expression ofsympathy, to walk about on tiptoe, and to whisper unaccustomed andobscure orders to the servants. You may wish to be read to--and yourloving wife will tell you with a sigh that she feels sure you will beunable to hear her reading, and only grow angry at her awkwardness indoing it; wherefore you had better not be read to at all. You may wishto walk about the room--and she will tell you that it would be farbetter for you not to do so. You may wish to talk with some friends whohave called--and she will tell you that talking is not good for you. Atnightfall the fever may come upon you again, and you may wish to beleft alone whereupon your loving wife, though wasted, pale, and full ofyawns, will go on sitting in a chair opposite you, as dusk falls, untilher very slightest movement, her very slightest sound, rouses you tofeelings of anger and impatience. You may have a servant who has livedwith you for twenty years, and to whom you are attached, and who wouldtend you well and to your satisfaction during the night, for the reasonthat he has been asleep all day and is, moreover, paid a salary forhis services; yet your wife will not suffer him to wait upon you. No;everything she must do herself with her weak, unaccustomed fingers (ofwhich you follow the movements with suppressed irritation as those palemembers do their best to uncork a medicine bottle, to snuff a candle, topour out physic, or to touch you in a squeamish sort of way). If you arean impatient, hasty sort of man, and beg of her to leave the room, youwill hear by the vexed, distressed sounds which come from her thatshe is humbly sobbing and weeping behind the door, and whisperingfoolishness of some kind to the servant. Finally if you do not die, your loving wife--who has not slept during the whole three weeks of yourillness (a fact of which she will constantly remind you)--will fall illin her turn, waste away, suffer much, and become even more incapable ofany useful pursuit than she was before; while by the time that youhave regained your normal state of health she will express to youher self-sacrificing affection only by shedding around you a kind ofbenignant dullness which involuntarily communicates itself both toyourself and to every one else in your vicinity. 

The third kind of love--practical love--consists of a yearning tosatisfy every need, every desire, every caprice, nay, every vice, of thebeing beloved. People who love thus always love their life long, since, the more they love, the more they get to know the object beloved, and the easier they find the task of loving it--that is to say, ofsatisfying its desires. Their love seldom finds expression in words, butif it does so, it expresses itself neither with assurance nor beauty, but rather in a shamefaced, awkward manner, since people of this kindinvariably have misgivings that they are loving unworthily. People ofthis kind love even the faults of their adored one, for the reason thatthose faults afford them the power of constantly satisfying newdesires. They look for their affection to be returned, and evendeceive themselves into believing that it is returned, and are happyaccordingly: yet in the reverse case they will still continue todesire happiness for their beloved one, and try by every means in theirpower--whether moral or material, great or small--to provide it. 

Such practical love it was--love for her nephew, for her niece, forher sister, for Lubov Sergievna, and even for myself, because I lovedDimitri--that shone in the eyes, as well as in the every word andmovement, of Sophia Ivanovna. 

Only long afterwards did I learn to value her at her true worth. Yeteven now the question occurred to me: "What has made Dimitri--whothroughout has tried to understand love differently to other youngfellows, and has always had before his eyes the gentle, loving SophiaIvanovna--suddenly fall so deeply in love with the incomprehensibleLubov Sergievna, and declare that in his aunt he can only find goodQUALITIES? Verily it is a true saying that 'a prophet hath no honour inhis own country. ' One of two things: either every man has in him moreof bad than of good, or every man is more receptive to bad than to good. Lubov Sergievna he has not known for long, whereas his aunt's love hehas known since the day of his birth. "

XXV. I BECOME BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH THE NECHLUDOFFS

WHEN I returned to the verandah, I found that they were not talkingof me at all, as I had anticipated. On the contrary, Varenika had laidaside the book, and was engaged in a heated dispute with Dimitri, who, for his part, was walking up and down the verandah, and frowninglyadjusting his neck in his collar as he did so. The subject of thequarrel seemed to be Ivan Yakovlevitch and superstition, but it was tooanimated a difference for its underlying cause not to be something whichconcerned the family much more nearly. Although the Princess and LubovSergievna were sitting by in silence, they were following every word, and evidently tempted at times to take part in the dispute; yet always, just when they were about to speak, they checked themselves, and leftthe field clear for the two principles, Dimitri and Varenika. On myentry, the latter glanced at me with such an indifferent air thatI could see she was wholly absorbed in the quarrel and did not carewhether she spoke in my presence or not. The Princess too looked thesame, and was clearly on Varenika's side, while Dimitri began, ifanything, to raise his voice still more when I appeared, and LubovSergievna, for her part, observed to no one in particular: "Old peopleare quite right when they say, 'Si jeunesse savait, si vieillessepouvait. '"

Nevertheless this quotation did not check the dispute, though it somehowgave me the impression that the side represented by the speaker and herfriend was in the wrong. Although it was a little awkward for me to bepresent at a petty family difference, the fact that the true relationsof the family revealed themselves during its progress, and that mypresence did nothing to hinder that revelation, afforded me considerablegratification. 

How often it happens that for years one sees a family cover themselvesover with a conventional cloak of decorum, and preserve the realrelations of its members a secret from every eye! How often, too, haveI remarked that, the more impenetrable (and therefore the more decorous)is the cloak, the harsher are the relations which it conceals! Yet, oncelet some unexpected question--often a most trivial one (the colour ofa woman's hair, a visit, a man's horses, and so forth)--arise in thatfamily circle, and without any visible cause there will also arise anever-growing difference, until in time the cloak of decorum becomesunequal to confining the quarrel within due bounds, and, to the dismayof the disputants and the astonishment of the auditors, the real andill-adjusted relations of the family are laid bare, and the cloak, now useless for concealment, is bandied from hand to hand among thecontending factions until it serves only to remind one of the yearsduring which it successfully deceived one's perceptions. Sometimes tostrike one's head violently against a ceiling hurts one less than justto graze some spot which has been hurt and bruised before: and inalmost every family there exists some such raw and tender spot. In theNechludoff family that spot was Dimitri's extraordinary affectionfor Lubov Sergievna, which aroused in the mother and sister, if not ajealous feeling, at all events a sense of hurt family pride. Thiswas the grave significance which underlay, for all those present, theseeming dispute about Ivan Yakovlevitch and superstition. 

"In anything that other people deride and despise you invariably professto see something extraordinarily good!" Varenika was saying in her clearvoice, as she articulated each syllable with careful precision. 

"Indeed?" retorted Dimitri with an impatient toss of his head. "Now, in the first place, only a most unthinking person could ever speak ofDESPISING such a remarkable man as Ivan Yakovlevitch, while, in thesecond place, it is YOU who invariably profess to see nothing good inwhat confronts you. "

Meanwhile Sophia Ivanovna kept looking anxiously at us as she turnedfirst to her nephew, and then to her niece, and then to myself. Twiceshe opened her mouth as though to say what was in her mind and drew adeep sigh. 

"Varia, PLEASE go on reading, " she said at length, at the same timehanding her niece the book, and patting her hand kindly. "I wish toknow whether he ever found HER again" (as a matter of fact, the novel inquestion contained not a word about any one finding any one else). "And, Mitia dear, " she added to her nephew, despite the glum looks which hewas throwing at her for having interrupted the logical thread of hisdeductions, "you had better let me poultice your cheek, or your teethwill begin to ache again. "

After that the reading was resumed. Yet the quarrel had in no waydispelled the calm atmosphere of family and intellectual harmony whichenveloped this circle of ladies. 

Clearly deriving its inspiration and character from the PrincessMaria Ivanovna, it was a circle which, for me, had a wholly noveland attractive character of logicalness mingled with simplicity andrefinement. That character I could discern in the daintiness, goodtaste, and solidity of everything about me, whether the handbell, thebinding of the book, the settee, or the table. Likewise, I divined it inthe upright, well-corseted pose of the Princess, in her pendant curlsof grey hair, in the manner in which she had, at our first introduction, called me plain "Nicolas" and "he, " in the occupations of the ladies(the reading and the sewing of garments), and in the unusual whitenessof their hands. Those hands, en passant, showed a family feature commonto all--namely, the feature that the flesh of the palm on the outer sidewas rosy in colour, and divided by a sharp, straight line from the purewhiteness of the upper portion of the hand. Still more was the characterof this feminine circle expressed in the manner in which the threeladies spoke Russian and French--spoke them, that is to say, withperfect articulation of syllables and pedantic accuracy of substantivesand prepositions. All this, and more especially the fact that the ladiestreated me as simply and as seriously as a real grown-up--telling metheir opinions, and listening to my own (a thing to which I was solittle accustomed that, for all my glittering buttons and blue facings, I was in constant fear of being told: "Surely you do not think that weare talking SERIOUSLY to you? Go away and learn something")--all this, Isay, caused me to feel an entire absence of restraint in this society. Iventured at times to rise, to move about, and to talk boldly to eachof the ladies except Varenika (whom I always felt it was unbecoming, oreven forbidden, for me to address unless she first spoke to me). 

As I listened to her clear, pleasant voice reading aloud, I keptglancing from her to the path of the flower-garden, where therain-spots were making small dark circles in the sand, and thence tothe lime-trees, upon the leaves of which the rain was pattering down inlarge detached drops shed from the pale, shimmering edge of the lividblue cloud which hung suspended over us. Then I would glance at heragain, and then at the last purple rays of the setting sun where theywere throwing the dense clusters of old, rain-washed birches intobrilliant relief. Yet again my eyes would return to Varenika, and, eachtime that they did so, it struck me afresh that she was not nearly soplain as at first I had thought her. 

"How I wish that I wasn't in love already!" I reflected, "or thatSonetchka was Varenika! How nice it would be if suddenly I could becomea member of this family, and have the three ladies for my mother, aunt, and wife respectively!" All the time that these thoughts kept passingthrough my head I kept attentively regarding Varenika as she read, untilsomehow I felt as though I were magnetising her, and that presently shemust look at me. Sure enough, at length she raised her head, threw me aglance, and, meeting my eyes, turned away. 

"The rain does not seem to stop, " she remarked. 

Suddenly a new feeling came over me. I began to feel as thougheverything now happening to me was a repetition of some similaroccurrence before--as though on some previous occasion a shower of rainhad begun to fall, and the sun had set behind birch-trees, and Ihad been looking at her, and she had been reading aloud, and I hadmagnetised her, and she had looked up at me. Yes, all this I seemed torecall as though it had happened once before. 

"Surely she is not--SHE?" was my thought. "Surely IT is not beginning?"However, I soon decided that Varenika was not the "SHE" referred to, andthat "it" was not "beginning. " "In the first place, " I said to myself, "Varenika is not at all BEAUTIFUL. She is just an ordinary girl whoseacquaintance I have made in the ordinary way, whereas the she whom Ishall meet somewhere and some day and in some not ordinary way willbe anything but ordinary. This family pleases me so much only becausehitherto I have never seen anybody. Such things will always be happeningin the future, and I shall see many more such families during my life. "

XXVI. I SHOW OFF

AT tea time the reading came to an end, and the ladies began to talkamong themselves of persons and things unknown to me. This I conceivedthem to be doing on purpose to make me conscious (for all their kinddemeanour) of the difference which years and position in the world hadset between them and myself. In general discussions, however, in which Icould take part I sought to atone for my late silence by exhibiting thatextraordinary cleverness and originality to which I felt compelled bymy University uniform. For instance, when the conversation turned uponcountry houses, I said that Prince Ivan Ivanovitch had a villa nearMoscow which people came to see even from London and Paris, and thatit contained balustrading which had cost 380, 000 roubles. Likewise, Iremarked that the Prince was a very near relation of mine, and that, when lunching with him the same day, he had invited me to go and spendthe entire summer with him at that villa, but that I had declined, sinceI knew the villa well, and had stayed in it more than once, and that allthose balustradings and bridges did not interest me, since I couldnot bear ornamental work, especially in the country, where I likedeverything to be wholly countrified. After delivering myself of thisextraordinary and complicated romance, I grew confused, and blushed somuch that every one must have seen that I was lying. Both Varenika, whowas handing me a cup of tea, and Sophia Ivanovna, who had been gazing atme throughout, turned their heads away, and began to talk of somethingelse with an expression which I afterwards learnt that good-naturedpeople assume when a very young man has told them a manifest string oflies--an expression which says, "Yes, we know he is lying, and why he isdoing it, the poor young fellow!"

What I had said about Prince Ivan Ivanovitch having a country villa, Ihad related simply because I could find no other pretext for mentioningboth my relationship to the Prince and the fact that I had been toluncheon with him that day; yet why I had said all I had about thebalustrading costing 380, 000 roubles, and about my having several timesvisited the Prince at that villa (I had never once been there--moreespecially since the Prince possessed no residences save in Moscow andNaples, as the Nechludoffs very well knew), I could not possibly tellyou. Neither in childhood nor in adolescence nor in riper years did Iever remark in myself the vice of falsehood--on the contrary, I was, ifanything, too outspoken and truthful. Yet, during this first stage ofmy manhood, I often found myself seized with a strange and unreasonabletendency to lie in the most desperate fashion. I say advisedly "in themost desperate fashion, " for the reason that I lied in matters in whichit was the easiest thing in the world to detect me. On the whole Ithink that a vain-glorious desire to appear different from what I was, combined with an impossible hope that the lie would never be found out, was the chief cause of this extraordinary impulse. 

After tea, since the rain had stopped and the after-glow of sunset wascalm and clear, the Princess proposed that we should go and stroll inthe lower garden, and admire her favourite spots there. Following myrule to be always original, and conceiving that clever people likemyself and the Princess must surely be above the banalities ofpoliteness, I replied that I could not bear a walk with no object inview, and that, if I DID walk, I liked to walk alone. I had no idea thatthis speech was simply rude; all I thought was that, even as nothingcould be more futile than empty compliments, so nothing could be morepleasing and original than a little frank brusquerie. However, thoughmuch pleased with my answer, I set out with the rest of the company. 

The Princess's favourite spot of all was at the very bottom of the lowergarden, where a little bridge spanned a narrow piece of swamp. The viewthere was very restricted, yet very intimate and pleasing. We are soaccustomed to confound art with nature that, often enough, phenomena ofnature which are never to be met with in pictures seem to us unreal, andgive us the impression that nature is unnatural, or vice versa; whereasphenomena of nature which occur with too much frequency in pictures seemto us hackneyed, and views which are to be met with in real life, but which appear to us too penetrated with a single idea or a singlesentiment, seem to us arabesques. The view from the Princess's favouritespot was as follows. On the further side of a small lake, over-grownwith weeds round its edges, rose a steep ascent covered with bushes andwith huge old trees of many shades of green, while, overhanging the lakeat the foot of the ascent, stood an ancient birch tree which, thoughpartly supported by stout roots implanted in the marshy bank of thelake, rested its crown upon a tall, straight poplar, and dangled itscurved branches over the smooth surface of the pond--both branches andthe surrounding greenery being reflected therein as in a mirror. 

"How lovely!" said the Princess with a nod of her head, and addressingno one in particular. 

"Yes, marvellous!" I replied in my desire to show that had an opinionof my own on every subject. "Yet somehow it all looks to me so terriblylike a scheme of decoration. "

The Princess went on gazing at the scene as though she had not heard me, and turning to her sister and Lubov Sergievna at intervals, in order topoint out to them its details--especially a curved, pendent bough, withits reflection in the water, which particularly pleased her. SophiaIvanovna observed to me that it was all very beautiful, and that she andher sister would sometimes spend hours together at this spot; yet it wasclear that her remarks were meant merely to please the Princess. I havenoticed that people who are gifted with the faculty of loving areseldom receptive to the beauties of nature. Lubov Sergievna also seemedenraptured, and asked (among other things), "How does that birch treemanage to support itself? Has it stood there long?" Yet the next momentshe became absorbed in contemplation of her little dog Susetka, which, with its stumpy paws pattering to and fro upon the bridge in a mincingfashion, seemed to say by the expression of its face that this was thefirst time it had ever found itself out of doors. As for Dimitri, hefell to discoursing very logically to his mother on the subject of howno view can be beautiful of which the horizon is limited. Varenikaalone said nothing. Glancing at her, I saw that she was leaning overthe parapet of the bridge, her profile turned towards me, and gazingstraight in front of her. Something seemed to be interesting her deeply, or even affecting her, since it was clear that she was oblivious to hersurroundings, and thinking neither of herself nor of the fact that anyone might be regarding her. In the expression of her large eyes therewas nothing but wrapt attention and quiet, concentrated thought, whileher whole attitude seemed so unconstrained and, for all her shortness, so dignified that once more some recollection or another touched me andonce more I asked myself, "Is IT, then, beginning?" Yet again I assuredmyself that I was already in love with Sonetchka, and that Varenika wasonly an ordinary girl, the sister of my friend. Though she pleased me atthat moment, I somehow felt a vague desire to show her, by word or deed, some small unfriendliness. 

"I tell you what, Dimitri, " I said to my friend as I moved nearer toVarenika, so that she might overhear what I was going to say, "it seemsto me that, even if there had been no mosquitos here, there would havebeen nothing to commend this spot; whereas "--and here I slapped mycheek, and in very truth annihilated one of those insects--"it is simplyawful. "

"Then you do not care for nature?" said Varenika without turning herhead. 

"I think it a foolish, futile pursuit, " I replied, well satisfied that Ihad said something to annoy her, as well as something original. Varenikaonly raised her eyebrows a little, with an expression of pity, and wenton gazing in front of her as calmly as before. 

I felt vexed with her. Yet, for all that, the rusty, paint-blisteredparapet on which she was leaning, the way in which the dark waters ofthe pond reflected the drooping branch of the overhanging birch tree (italmost seemed to me as though branch and its reflection met), the risingodour of the swamp, the feeling of crushed mosquito on my cheek, andher absorbed look and statuesque pose--many times afterwards did thesethings recur with unexpected vividness to my recollection. 

XXVII. DIMITRI

WHEN we returned to the house from our stroll, Varenika declined tosing as she usually did in the evenings, and I was conceited enough toattribute this to my doing, in the belief that its reason lay in whatI had said on the bridge. The Nechludoffs never had supper, and went tobed early, while to-night, since Dimitri had the toothache (as SophiaIvanovna had foretold), he departed with me to his room even earlierthan usual. Feeling that I had done all that was required of me by myblue collar and gilt buttons, and that every one was very pleased withme, I was in a gratified, complacent mood, while Dimitri, on the otherhand, was rendered by his quarrel with his sister and the toothacheboth taciturn and gloomy. He sat down at the table, got out a couple ofnotebooks--a diary and the copy-book in which it was his custom everyevening to inscribe the tasks performed by or awaiting him--and, continually frowning and touching his cheek with his hand, continuedwriting for a while. 

"Oh, DO leave me alone!" he cried to the maid whom Sophia Ivanovna sentto ask him whether his teeth were still hurting him, and whether hewould not like to have a poultice made. Then, saying that my bed wouldsoon be ready for me and that he would be back presently, he departed toLubov Sergievna's room. 

"What a pity that Varenika is not good-looking and, in general, Sonetchka!" I reflected when I found myself alone. "How nice it would beif, after I have left the University, I could go to her and offer hermy hand! I would say to her, 'Princess, though no longer young, andtherefore unable to love passionately, I will cherish you as a dearsister. And you, ' I would continue to her mother, 'I greatly respect;and you, Sophia Ivanovna, I value highly. Therefore say to me, Varenika(since I ask you to be my wife), just the simple and direct word YES. 'And she would give me her hand, and I should press it, and say, 'Mine isa love which depends not upon words, but upon deeds. ' And suppose, "next came into my head, "that Dimitri should suddenly fall in love withLubotshka (as Lubotshka has already done with him), and should desire tomarry her? Then either one or the other of us would have to resign allthought of marriage. Well, it would be splendid, for in that case Ishould act thus. As soon as I had noticed how things were, I should makeno remark, but go to Dimitri and say, 'It is no use, my friend, for youand I to conceal our feelings from one another. You know that my lovefor your sister will terminate only with my life. Yet I know all; andthough you have deprived me of all hope, and have rendered me an unhappyman, so that Nicolas Irtenieff will have to bewail his misery for therest of his existence, yet do you take my sister, ' and I should layhis hand in Lubotshka's. Then he would say to me, 'No, not for all theworld!' and I should reply, 'Prince Nechludoff, it is in vain for you toattempt to outdo me in nobility. Not in the whole world does there exista more magnanimous being than Nicolas Irtenieff. ' Then I should salutehim and depart. In tears Dimitri and Lubotshka would pursue me, andentreat me to accept their sacrifice, and I should consent to do so, and, perhaps, be happy ever afterwards--if only I were in love withVarenika. " These fancies tickled my imagination so pleasantly that Ifelt as though I should like to communicate them to my friend; yet, despite our mutual vow of frankness, I also felt as though I had not thephysical energy to do so. 

Dimitri returned from Lubov Sergievna's room with some toothachecapsules which she had given him, yet in even greater pain, andtherefore in even greater depression, than before. Evidently no bedroomhad yet been prepared for me, for presently the boy who acted asDimitri's valet arrived to ask him where I was to sleep. 

"Oh, go to the devil!" cried Dimitri, stamping his foot. "Vasika, Vasika, Vasika!" he went on, the instant that the boy had left the room, with a gradual raising of his voice at each repetition. "Vasika, lay meout a bed on the floor. "

"No, let ME sleep on the floor, " I objected. 

"Well, it is all one. Lie anywhere you like, " continued Dimitri in thesame angry tone. "Vasika, why don't you go and do what I tell you?"

Evidently Vasika did not understand what was demanded of him, for heremained where he was. 

"What is the matter with you? Go and lay the bed, Vasika, I tell you!"shouted Dimitri, suddenly bursting into a sort of frenzy; yet Vasikastill did not understand, but, blushing hotly, stood motionless. 

"So you are determined to drive me mad, are you?"--and leaping from hischair and rushing upon the boy, Dimitri struck him on the head with thewhole weight of his fist, until the boy rushed headlong from the room. Halting in the doorway, Dimitri glanced at me, and the expression offury and pain which had sat for a moment on his countenance suddenlygave place to such a boyish, kindly, affectionate, yet ashamed, expression that I felt sorry for him, and reconsidered my intention ofleaving him to himself. He said nothing, but for a long time paced theroom in silence, occasionally glancing at me with the same deprecatoryexpression as before. Then he took his notebook from the table, wrotesomething in it, took off his jacket and folded it carefully, and, stepping into the corner where the ikon hung, knelt down and began tosay his prayers, with his large white hands folded upon his breast. Solong did he pray that Vasika had time to bring a mattress and spread it, under my whispered directions, on the floor. Indeed, I had undressedand laid myself down upon the mattress before Dimitri had finished. As Icontemplated his slightly rounded back and the soles of his feet (whichsomehow seemed to stick out in my direction in a sort of repentantfashion whenever he made his obeisances), I felt that I liked him morethan ever, and debated within myself whether or not I should tell himall I had been fancying concerning our respective sisters. When he hadfinished his prayers, he lay down upon the bed near me, and, proppinghimself upon his elbow, looked at me in silence, with a kindly, yetabashed, expression. Evidently he found it difficult to do this, yetmeant thus to punish himself. Then I smiled and returned his gaze, andhe smiled back at me. 

"Why do you not tell me that my conduct has been abominable?" he said. "You have been thinking so, have you not?"

"Yes, " I replied; and although it was something quite different whichhad been in my mind, it now seemed to me that that was what I had beenthinking. "Yes, it was not right of you, nor should I have expected itof you. " It pleased me particularly at that moment to call him by thefamiliar second person singular. "But how are your teeth now?" I added. 

"Oh, much better. Nicolinka, my friend, " he went on, and so feelinglythat it sounded as though tears were standing in his eyes, "I knowand feel that I am bad, but God sees how I try to be better, and how Ientreat Him to make me so. Yet what am I to do with such an unfortunate, horrible nature as mine? What am I to do with it? I try to keep myselfin hand and to rule myself, but suddenly it becomes impossible for meto do so--at all events, impossible for me to do so unaided. I needthe help and support of some one. Now, there is Lubov Sergievna; SHEunderstands me, and could help me in this, and I know by my notebookthat I have greatly improved in this respect during the past year. Ah, my dear Nicolinka"--he spoke with the most unusual and unwontedtenderness, and in a tone which had grown calmer now that he had madehis confession--"how much the influence of a woman like Lubov could dofor me! Think how good it would be for me if I could have a friend likeher to live with when I have become independent! With her I should beanother man. "

And upon that Dimitri began to unfold to me his plans for marriage, fora life in the country, and for continual self-discipline. 

"Yes, I will live in the country, " he said, "and you shall come to seeme when you have married Sonetchka. Our children shall play together. All this may seem to you stupid and ridiculous, yet it may very wellcome to pass. "

"Yes, it very well may" I replied with a smile, yet thinking how muchnicer it would be if I married his sister. 

"I tell you what, " he went on presently; "you only imagine yourself tobe in love with Sonetchka, whereas I can see that it is all rubbish, andthat you do not really know what love means. "

I did not protest, for, in truth, I almost agreed with him, and for awhile we lay without speaking. 

"Probably you have noticed that I have been in my old bad humour today, and have had a nasty quarrel with Varia?" he resumed. "I felt bad aboutit afterwards--more particularly since it occurred in your presence. Although she thinks wrongly on some subjects, she is a splendid girl andvery good, as you will soon recognise. "

His quick transition from mention of my love affairs to praise of hissister pleased me extremely, and made me blush, but I nevertheless saidnothing more about his sister, and we went on talking of other things. 

Thus we chattered until the cocks had crowed twice. In fact, the paledawn was already looking in at the window when at last Dimitri lay downupon his bed and put out the candle. 

"Well, now for sleep, " he said. 

"Yes, " I replied, "but--"

"But what?"

"Now nice it is to be alive in the daylight!"

"Yes, it IS a splendid thing!" he replied in a voice which, even in thedarkness, enabled me to see the expression of his cheerful, kindly eyesand boyish smile. 

XXVIII. IN THE COUNTRY

Next day Woloda and myself departed in a post-chaise for the country. Turning over various Moscow recollections in my head as we drove along, I suddenly recalled Sonetchka Valakhin--though not until evening, andwhen we had already covered five stages of the road. "It is a strangething, " I thought, "that I should be in love, and yet have forgotten allabout it. I must start and think about her, " and straightway I proceededto do so, but only in the way that one thinks when travelling--that isto say, disconnectedly, though vividly. Thus I brought myself to such acondition that, for the first two days after our arrival home, I somehowconsidered it incumbent upon me always to appear sad and moody in thepresence of the household, and especially before Katenka, whom I lookedupon as a great connoisseur in matters of this kind, and to whom I threwout a hint of the condition in which my heart was situated. Yet, forall my attempts at dissimulation and assiduous adoption of such signsof love sickness as I had occasionally observed in other people, Ionly succeeded for two days (and that at intervals, and mostly towardsevening) in reminding myself of the fact that I was in love, andfinally, when I had settled down into the new rut of country life andpursuits, I forgot about my affection for Sonetchka altogether. 

We arrived at Petrovskoe in the night time, and I was then so soundlyasleep that I saw nothing of the house as we approached it, nor yet ofthe avenue of birch trees, nor yet of the household--all of whom hadlong ago betaken themselves to bed and to slumber. Only old hunchbackedFoka--bare-footed, clad in some sort of a woman's wadded nightdress, andcarrying a candlestick--opened the door to us. As soon as he saw whowe were, he trembled all over with joy, kissed us on the shoulders, hurriedly put on his felt slippers, and started to dress himselfproperly. I passed in a semi-waking condition through the porch and upthe steps, but in the hall the lock of the door, the bars and bolts, the crooked boards of the flooring, the chest, the ancient candelabrum(splashed all over with grease as of old), the shadows thrown by thecrooked, chill, recently-lighted stump of candle, the perennially dusty, unopened window behind which I remembered sorrel to have grown--all wasso familiar, so full of memories, so intimate of aspect, so, as it were, knit together by a single idea, that I suddenly became conscious of atenderness for this quiet old house. Involuntarily I asked myself, "How have we, the house and I, managed to remain apart so long?" and, hurrying from spot to spot, ran to see if all the other rooms were stillthe same. Yes, everything was unchanged, except that everything hadbecome smaller and lower, and I myself taller, heavier, and more filledout. Yet, even as I was, the old house received me back into its arms, and aroused in me with every board, every window, every step of thestairs, and every sound the shadows of forms, feelings, and events ofthe happy but irrevocable past. When we entered our old night nursery, all my childish fears lurked once more in the darkness of the cornersand doorway. When we passed into the drawing-room, I could feel the oldcalm motherly love diffusing itself from every object in the apartment. In the breakfast-room, the noisy, careless merriment of childhood seemedmerely to be waiting to wake to life again. In the divannaia(whither Foka first conducted us, and where he had prepared our beds)everything--mirror, screen, old wooden ikon, the lumps on the wallscovered with white paper--seemed to speak of suffering and of death andof what would never come back to us again. 

We got into bed, and Foka, bidding us good-night, retired. 

"It was in this room that Mamma died, was it not?" said Woloda. 

I made no reply, but pretended to be asleep. If I had said anything Ishould have burst into tears. On awaking next morning, I beheld Papasitting on Woloda's bed in his dressing gown and slippers and smoking acigar. Leaping up with a merry hoist of the shoulders, he came over tome, slapped me on the back with his great hand, and presented me hischeek to press my lips to. 

"Well done, DIPLOMAT!" he said in his most kindly jesting tone as helooked at me with his small bright eyes. "Woloda tells me you havepassed the examinations well for a youngster, and that is a splendidthing. Unless you start and play the fool, I shall have another finelittle fellow in you. Thanks, my dear boy. Well, we will have a grandtime of it here now, and in the winter, perhaps, we shall move to St. Petersburg. I only wish the hunting was not over yet, or I could havegiven you some amusement in THAT way. Can you shoot, Woldemar? However, whether there is any game or not, I will take you out some day. Nextwinter, if God pleases, we will move to St. Petersburg, and you shallmeet people, and make friends, for you are now my two young grown-ups. I have been telling Woldemar that you are just starting on your careers, whereas my day is ended. You are old enough now to walk by yourselves, but, whenever you wish to confide in me, pray do so, for I am no longeryour nurse, but your friend. At least, I will be your friend and comradeand adviser as much as I can and more than that I cannot do. How doesthat fall in with your philosophy, eh, Koko? Well or ill, eh?"

Of course I said that it fell in with it entirely, and, indeed, I reallythought so. That morning Papa had a particularly winning, bright, andhappy expression on his face, and these new relations between us, as ofequals and comrades, made me love him all the more. 

"Now, tell me, " he went on, "did you call upon all our kinsfolk and theIwins? Did you see the old man, and what did he say to you? And did yougo to Prince Ivan's?"

We continued talking so long that, before we were fully dressed, the sunhad left the window of the divannaia, and Jakoff (the same old man whoof yore had twirled his fingers behind his back and always repeated hiswords) had entered the room and reported to Papa that the carriage wasready. 

"Where are you going to?" I asked Papa. 

"Oh, I had forgotten all about it!" he replied, with a cough andthe usual hoisting of his shoulder. "I promised to go and call uponEpifanova to-day. You remember Epifanova--'la belle Flamande'--don'tyou, who used to come and see your Mamma? They are nice people. " Andwith a self-conscious shrug of his shoulders (so it appeared to me) Papaleft the room. 

During our conversation, Lubotshka had more than once come to the doorand asked "Can I come in?" but Papa had always shouted to her that shecould not do so, since we were not dressed yet. 

"What rubbish!" she replied. "Why, I have seen you in yourdressing-gown. "

"Never mind; you cannot see your brothers without their inexpressibles, "rejoined Papa. "If they each of them just go to the door, let that beenough for you. Now go. Even for them to SPEAK to you in such a negligecostume is unbecoming. "

"How unbearable you are!" was Lubotshka's parting retort. "Well, atleast hurry up and come down to the drawing-room, for Mimi wants to seethem. "

As soon as Papa had left the room, I hastened to array myself in mystudent's uniform, and to repair to the drawing-room. 

Woloda, on the other hand, was in no hurry, but remained sitting onhis bed and talking to Jakoff about the best places to find plover andsnipe. As I have said, there was nothing in the world he so much fearedas to be suspected of any affection for his father, brother, and sister;so that, to escape any expression of that feeling, he often fell intothe other extreme, and affected a coldness which shocked people who didnot comprehend its cause. In the hall, I collided with Papa, who washurrying towards the carriage with short, rapid steps. He had a new andfashionable Moscow greatcoat on, and smelt of scent. On seeing me, hegave a cheerful nod, as much as to say, "Do you remark my splendour?"and once again I was struck with the happy expression of face which Ihad noted earlier in the morning. 

The drawing-room looked the same lofty, bright room as of Yore, with itsbrown English piano, and its large open windows looking on to the greentrees and yellowish-red paths of the garden. After kissing Mimi andLubotshka, I was approaching Katenka for the same purpose when itsuddenly struck me that it might be improper for me to salute her inthat fashion. Accordingly I halted, silent and blushing. Katenka, forher part, was quite at her ease as she held out a white hand to me andcongratulated me on my passing into the University. The same thing tookplace when Woloda entered the drawing-room and met Katenka. Indeed, it was something of a problem how, after being brought up together andseeing one another daily, we ought now, after this first separation, tomeet again. Katenka had grown better-looking than any of us, yet Wolodaseemed not at all confused as, with a slight bow to her, he crossed overto Lubotshka, made a jesting remark to her, and then departed somewhereon some solitary expedition. 

XXIX. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE GIRLS AND OURSELVES

OF the girls Woloda took the strange view that, although he wished thatthey should have enough to eat, should sleep well, be well dressed, and avoid making such mistakes in French as would shame him beforestrangers, he would never admit that they could think or feel like humanbeings, still less that they could converse with him sensibly aboutanything. Whenever they addressed to him a serious question (a thing, bythe way, which he always tried to avoid), such as asking his opinion ona novel or inquiring about his doings at the University, he invariablypulled a grimace, and either turned away without speaking or answeredwith some nonsensical French phrase--"Comme c'est tres jolie!" or thelike. Or again, feigning to look serious and stolidly wise, he would saysomething absolutely meaningless and bearing no relation whatever to thequestion asked him, or else suddenly exclaim, with a look ofpretended unconsciousness, the word bulku or poyechali or kapustu, [Respectively, "roll of butter, " "away, " and "cabbage. "] or something ofthe kind; and when, afterwards, I happened to repeat these words to himas having been told me by Lubotshka or Katenka, he would always remark:

"Hm! So you actually care about talking to them? I can see you are aduffer still"--and one needed to see and near him to appreciate theprofound, immutable contempt which echoed in this remark. He had beengrown-up now two years, and was in love with every good-looking womanthat he met; yet, despite the fact that he came in daily contact withKatenka (who during those two years had been wearing long dresses, andwas growing prettier every day), the possibility of his falling in lovewith her never seemed to enter his head. Whether this proceeded from thefact that the prosaic recollections of childhood were still too freshin his memory, or whether from the aversion which very young peoplefeel for everything domestic, or whether from the common human weaknesswhich, at a first encounter with anything fair and pretty, leads a manto say to himself, "Ah! I shall meet much more of the same kind duringmy life, " but at all events Woloda had never yet looked upon Katenkawith a man's eyes. 

All that summer Woloda appeared to find things very wearisome--a factwhich arose out of that contempt for us all which, as I have said, he made no effort to conceal. His expression of face seemed to beconstantly saying, "Phew! how it bores me to have no one to speak to!"The first thing in the morning he would go out shooting, or sit readinga book in his room, and not dress until luncheon time. Indeed, ifPapa was not at home, he would take his book into that meal, and go onreading it without addressing so much as a single word to any one of us, who felt, somehow, guilty in his presence. In the evening, too, he wouldstretch himself on a settee in the drawing-room, and either go to sleep, propped on his elbow, or tell us farcical stories--sometimes stories soimproper as to make Mimi grow angry and blush, and ourselves die withlaughter. At other times he would not condescend to address a singleserious word to any member of the family except Papa or (occasionally)myself. Involuntarily I offended against his view of girls, seeing thatI was not so afraid of seeming affectionate as he, and, moreover, hadnot such a profound and confirmed contempt for young women. Yet severaltimes that summer, when driven by lack of amusement to try and engageLubotshka and Katenka in conversation, I always encountered in them suchan absence of any capacity for logical thinking, and such an ignoranceof the simplest, most ordinary matters (as, for instance, the nature ofmoney, the subjects studied at universities, the effect of war, and soforth), as well as such indifference to my explanations of such matters, that these attempts of mine only ended in confirming my unfavourableopinion of feminine ability. 

I remember one evening when Lubotshka kept repeating some unbearablytedious passage on the piano about a hundred times in succession, whileWoloda, who was dozing on a settee in the drawing-room, kept addressingno one in particular as he muttered, "Lord! how she murders it! WHAT amusician! WHAT a Beethoven!" (he always pronounced the composer's namewith especial irony). "Wrong again! Now--a second time! That's it!"and so on. Meanwhile Katenka and I were sitting by the tea-table, andsomehow she began to talk about her favourite subject--love. I was inthe right frame of mind to philosophise, and began by loftily defininglove as the wish to acquire in another what one does not possess inoneself. To this Katenka retorted that, on the contrary, love is notlove at all if a girl desires to marry a man for his money alone, butthat, in her opinion, riches were a vain thing, and true love only theaffection which can stand the test of separation (this I took to be ahint concerning her love for Dubkoff). At this point Woloda, who musthave been listening all the time, raised himself on his elbow, and criedout some rubbish or another; and I felt that he was right. 

Apart from the general faculties (more or less developed in differentpersons) of intellect, sensibility, and artistic feeling, there alsoexists (more or less developed in different circles of society, andespecially in families) a private or individual faculty which I maycall APPREHENSION. The essence of this faculty lies in sympatheticappreciation of proportion, and in identical understanding of things. Two individuals who possess this faculty and belong to the same socialcircle or the same family apprehend an expression of feeling preciselyto the same point, namely, the point beyond which such expressionbecomes mere phrasing. Thus they apprehend precisely where commendationends and irony begins, where attraction ends and pretence begins, in amanner which would be impossible for persons possessed of a differentorder of apprehension. Persons possessed of identical apprehension viewobjects in an identically ludicrous, beautiful, or repellent light; andin order to facilitate such identical apprehension between members ofthe same social circle or family, they usually establish a language, turns of speech, or terms to define such shades of apprehension as existfor them alone. In our particular family such apprehension was commonto Papa, Woloda, and myself, and was developed to the highest pitch, Dubkoff also approximated to our coterie in apprehension, but Dimitri, though infinitely more intellectual than Dubkoff, was grosser in thisrespect. With no one, however, did I bring this faculty to such a pointas with Woloda, who had grown up with me under identical conditions. Papa stood a long way from us, and much that was to us as clear as "twoand two make four" was to him incomprehensible. For instance, I andWoloda managed to establish between ourselves the following terms, withmeanings to correspond. Izium [Raisins. ] meant a desire to boast ofone's money; shishka [Bump or swelling. ] (on pronouncing which one hadto join one's fingers together, and to put a particular emphasis uponthe two sh's in the word) meant anything fresh, healthy, and comely, butnot elegant; a substantive used in the plural meant an undue partialityfor the object which it denoted; and so forth, and so forth. At the sametime, the meaning depended considerably upon the expression of theface and the context of the conversation; so that, no matter what newexpression one of us might invent to define a shade of feeling the othercould immediately understand it by a hint alone. The girls did not sharethis faculty of apprehension, and herein lay the chief cause of ourmoral estrangement, and of the contempt which we felt for them. 

It may be that they too had their "apprehension, " but it so little ranwith ours that, where we already perceived the "phrasing, " they stillsaw only the feeling--our irony was for them truth, and so on. At thattime I had not yet learnt to understand that they were in no wayto blame for this, and that absence of such apprehension in no wayprevented them from being good and clever girls. Accordingly I lookeddown upon them. Moreover, having once lit upon my precious idea of"frankness, " and being bent upon applying it to the full in myself, Ithought the quiet, confiding nature of Lubotshka guilty of secretivenessand dissimulation simply because she saw no necessity for digging up andexamining all her thoughts and instincts. For instance, the fact thatshe always signed the sign of the cross over Papa before going to bed, that she and Katenka invariably wept in church when attending requiemmasses for Mamma, and that Katenka sighed and rolled her eyes about whenplaying the piano--all these things seemed to me sheer make-believe, andI asked myself: "At what period did they learn to pretend like grown-uppeople, and how can they bring themselves to do it?"

XXX. HOW I EMPLOYED MY TIME

Nevertheless, the fact that that summer I developed a passion for musiccaused me to become better friends with the ladies of our householdthan I had been for years. In the spring, a young fellow came to see us, armed with a letter of introduction, who, as soon as ever he entered thedrawing-room, fixed his eyes upon the piano, and kept graduallyedging his chair closer to it as he talked to Mimi and Katenka. Afterdiscoursing awhile of the weather and the amenities of country life, heskilfully directed the conversation to piano-tuners, music, and pianosgenerally, and ended by saying that he himself played--and in truthhe did sit down and perform three waltzes, with Mimi, Lubotshka, andKatenka grouped about the instrument, and watching him as he did so. Henever came to see us again, but his playing, and his attitude when atthe piano, and the way in which he kept shaking his long hair, and, mostof all, the manner in which he was able to execute octaves with his lefthand as he first of all played them rapidly with his thumb and littlefinger, and then slowly closed those members, and then played theoctaves afresh, made a great impression upon me. This graceful gestureof his, together with his easy pose and his shaking of hair andsuccessful winning of the ladies' applause by his talent, ended byfiring me to take up the piano. Convinced that I possessed both talentand a passion for music, I set myself to learn, and, in doing so, actedjust as millions of the male--still more, of the female--sex have donewho try to teach themselves without a skilled instructor, without anyreal turn for the art, or without the smallest understanding either ofwhat the art can give or of what ought to be done to obtain that gift. For me music (or rather, piano-playing) was simply a means of winningthe ladies' good graces through their sensibility. With the help ofKatenka I first learnt the notes (incidentally breaking several of themwith my clumsy fingers), and then--that is to say, after two months ofhard work, supplemented by ceaseless twiddling of my rebellious fingerson my knees after luncheon, and on the pillow when in bed--went on to"pieces, " which I played (so Katenka assured me) with "soul" ("avecame"), but altogether regardless of time. 

My range of pieces was the usual one--waltzes, galops, "romances, ""arrangements, " etcetera; all of them of the class of delightfulcompositions of which any one with a little healthy taste could pointout a selection among the better class works contained in any volumeof music and say, "These are what you ought NOT to play, seeing thatanything worse, less tasteful, and more silly has never yet beenincluded in any collection of music, "--but which (probably for that veryreason) are to be found on the piano of every Russian lady. True, wealso possessed an unfortunate volume which contained Beethoven's "SonatePathetique" and the C minor Sonata (a volume lamed for life by theladies--more especially by Lubotshka, who used to discourse music fromit in memory of Mamma), as well as certain other good pieces which herteacher in Moscow had given her; but among that collection there werelikewise compositions of the teacher's own, in the shape of clumsymarches and galops--and these too Lubotshka used to play! Katenka andI cared nothing for serious works, but preferred, above all things, "LeFou" and "The Nightingale"--the latter of which Katenka would play untilher fingers almost became invisible, and which I too was beginning toexecute with much vigour and some continuity. I had adopted the gesturesof the young man of whom I have spoken, and frequently regretted thatthere were no strangers present to see me play. Soon, however, I beganto realise that Liszt and Kalkbrenner were beyond me, and that I shouldnever overtake Katenka. Accordingly, imagining that classical music waseasier (as well as, partly, for the sake of originality), I suddenlycame to the conclusion that I loved abstruse German music. I began togo into raptures whenever Lubotshka played the "Sonate Pathetique, " andalthough (if the truth be told) that work had for years driven me to theverge of distraction, I set myself to play Beethoven, and to talk of himas "Beethoven. " Yet through all this chopping and changing and pretence(as I now conceive) there may have run in me a certain vein of talent, since music sometimes affected me even to tears, and things whichparticularly pleased me I could strum on the piano afterwards (in acertain fashion) without the score; so that, had any one taught me atthat period to look upon music as an end, a grace, in itself, andnot merely as a means for pleasing womenfolk with the velocity andpseudo-sentiment of one's playing, I might possibly have become apassable musician. 

The reading of French novels (of which Woloda had brought a large storewith him from Moscow) was another of my amusements that summer. At thatperiod Monte Cristo and Taine's works had just appeared, while I alsorevelled in stories by Sue, Dumas, and Paul de Kock. Even their mostunnatural personages and events were for me as real as actuality, andnot only was I incapable of suspecting an author of lying, but, inmy eyes, there existed no author at all. That is to say, the variouspersonages and events of a book paraded themselves before me on theprinted page as personages and events that were alive and real; andalthough I had never in my life met such characters as I there readabout, I never for a second doubted that I should one day do so. Idiscovered in myself all the passions described in every novel, aswell as a likeness to all the characters--heroes and villainsimpartially--who figured therein, just as a suspicious man finds inhimself the signs of every possible disease when reading a book onmedicine. I took pleasure both in the cunning designs, the glowingsentiments, the tumultuous events, and the character-drawing of theseworks. A good man was of the goodness, a bad man of the badness, possible only to the imagination of early youth. Likewise I found greatpleasure in the fact that it was all written in French, and that I couldlay to heart the fine words which the fine heroes spoke, and recall themfor use some day when engaged in some noble deed. What quantities ofFrench phrases I culled from those books for Kolpikoff's benefit if Ishould ever meet him again, as well as for HERS, when at length I shouldfind her and reveal to her my love! For them both I prepared speecheswhich should overcome them as soon as spoken! Upon novels, too, Ifounded new ideals of the moral qualities which I wished to attain. First of all, I wished to be NOBLE in all my deeds and conduct (I usethe French word noble instead of the Russian word blagorodni for thereason that the former has a different meaning to the latter--asthe Germans well understood when they adopted noble as nobel anddifferentiated it from ehrlich); next, to be strenuous; and lastly, to be what I was already inclined to be, namely, comme il faut. I eventried to approximate my appearance and bearing to that of the heroes whopossessed these qualities. In particular I remember how in one of thehundred or so novels which I read that summer there was a very strenuoushero with heavy eyebrows, and that I so greatly wished to resemble him(I felt that I did so already from a moral point of view) that oneday, when looking at my eyebrows in the glass, I conceived the idea ofclipping them, in order to make them grow bushier. Unfortunately, afterI had started to do so, I happened to clip one spot rather shorter thanthe rest, and so had to level down the rest to it-with the resultthat, to my horror, I beheld myself eyebrow-less, and anything butpresentable. However, I comforted myself with the reflection that myeyebrows would soon sprout again as bushy as my hero's, and was onlyperplexed to think how I could explain the circumstance to the householdwhen they next perceived my eyebrow-less condition. Accordingly Iborrowed some gunpowder from Woloda, rubbed it on my temples, and setit alight. The powder did not fire properly, but I succeeded in singeingmyself sufficiently to avert all suspicion of my pranks. And, indeed, afterwards, when I had forgotten all about my hero, my eyebrows grewagain, and much thicker than they had been before. 

XXXI. "COMME IL FAUT"

SEVERAL times in the course of this narrative I have hinted at an ideacorresponding to the above French heading, and now feel it incumbentupon me to devote a whole chapter to that idea, which was one of themost ruinous, lying notions which ever became engrafted upon my life bymy upbringing and social milieu. 

The human race may be divided into several categories--rich and poor, good and bad, military and civilian, clever and stupid, and so forth, and so forth. Yet each man has his own favourite, fundamental system ofdivision which he unconsciously uses to class each new person withwhom he meets. At the time of which I am speaking, my own favourite, fundamental system of division in this respect was into people "comme ilfaut" and people "comme il ne faut pas"--the latter subdivided, again, into people merely not "comme il faut" and the lower orders. People"comme il faut" I respected, and looked upon as worthy to consort withme as my equals; the second of the above categories I pretended merelyto despise, but in reality hated, and nourished towards them a kindof feeling of offended personality; while the third category had noexistence at all, so far as I was concerned, since my contempt forthem was too complete. This "comme il faut"-ness of mine lay, first andforemost, in proficiency in French, especially conversational French. Aperson who spoke that language badly at once aroused in me a feeling ofdislike. "Why do you try to talk as we do when you haven't a notion howto do it?" I would seem to ask him with my most venomous and quizzingsmile. The second condition of "comme il faut"-ness was long nailsthat were well kept and clean; the third, ability to bow, dance, and converse; the fourth--and a very important one--indifference toeverything, and a constant air of refined, supercilious ennui. Moreover, there were certain general signs which, I considered, enabled meto tell, without actually speaking to a man, the class to which hebelonged. Chief among these signs (the others being the fittings of hisrooms, his gloves, his handwriting, his turn-out, and so forth) were hisfeet. The relation of boots to trousers was sufficient to determine, inmy eyes, the social status of a man. Heelless boots with angular toes, wedded to narrow, unstrapped trouser-ends--these denoted the vulgarian. Boots with narrow, round toes and heels, accompanied either by tighttrousers strapped under the instep and fitting close to the leg or bywide trousers similarly strapped, but projecting in a peak over thetoe--these meant the man of mauvais genre; and so on, and so on. 

It was a curious thing that I who lacked all ability to become "comme ilfaut, " should have assimilated the idea so completely as I did. Possiblyit was the fact that it had cost me such enormous labour to acquire thatbrought about its strenuous development in my mind. I hardly like tothink how much of the best and most valuable time of my first sixteenyears of existence I wasted upon its acquisition. Yet every one whom Iimitated--Woloda, Dubkoff, and the majority of my acquaintances--seemedto acquire it easily. I watched them with envy, and silently toiled tobecome proficient in French, to bow gracefully and without looking atthe person whom I was saluting, to gain dexterity in small-talk anddancing, to cultivate indifference and ennui, and to keep my fingernailswell trimmed (though I frequently cut my finger-ends with the scissorsin so doing). And all the time I felt that so much remained to be doneif I was ever to attain my end! A room, a writing-table, an equipageI still found it impossible to arrange "comme il faut, " however muchI fought down my aversion to practical matters in my desire to becomeproficient. Yet everything seemed to arrange itself properly with otherpeople, just as though things could never have been otherwise! Once Iremember asking Dubkoff, after much zealous and careful labouring at myfinger-nails (his own were extraordinarily good), whether his nails hadalways been as now, or whether he had done anything to make them so: towhich he replied that never within his recollection had he done anythingto them, and that he could not imagine a gentleman's nails possiblybeing different. This answer incensed me greatly, for I had not yetlearnt that one of the chief conditions of "comme il faut"-ness was tohold one's tongue about the labour by which it had been acquired. "Comme il faut"-ness I looked upon as not only a great merit, a splendidaccomplishment, an embodiment of all the perfection which must strive toattain, but as the one indispensable condition without which there couldnever be happiness, nor glory, nor any good whatsoever in this world. Even the greatest artist or savant or benefactor of the human race wouldat that time have won from me no respect if he had not also been "commeil faut. " A man possessed of "comme il faut"-ness stood higher than, andbeyond all possible equality with, such people, and might well leave itto them to paint pictures, to compose music, to write books, or to dogood. Possibly he might commend them for so doing (since why should notmerit be commended where-ever it be found?), but he could never standON A LEVEL with them, seeing that he was "comme il faut" and they werenot--a quite final and sufficient reason. In fact, I actually believethat, had we possessed a brother or a father or a mother who had notbeen "comme il faut, " I should have declared it to be a great misfortunefor us, and announced that between myself and them there could neverbe anything in common. Yet neither waste of the golden hours whichI consumed in constantly endeavouring to observe the many arduous, unattainable conditions of "comme il faut"-ness (to the exclusion of anymore serious pursuit), nor dislike of and contempt for nine-tenths ofthe human race, nor disregard of all the beauty that lay outside thenarrow circle of "comme il faut"-ness comprised the whole of the evilwhich the idea wrought in me. The chief evil of all lay in the notionacquired that a man need not strive to become a tchinovnik, [Official. ]a coachbuilder, a soldier, a savant, or anything useful, so long onlyas he was "comme il faut "--that by attaining the latter quality he haddone all that was demanded of him, and was even superior to most people. 

Usually, at a given period in youth, and after many errors and excesses, every man recognises the necessity of his taking an active part insocial life, and chooses some branch of labour to which to devotehimself. Only with the "comme il faut" man does this rarely happen. I have known, and know, very, very many people--old, proud, self-satisfied, and opinionated--who to the question (if it should everpresent itself to them in their world) "Who have you been, and what haveyou ever done?" would be unable to reply otherwise than by saying, "Je fus un homme tres comme il faut, "

Such a fate was awaiting myself. 

XXXII. YOUTH

Despite the confusion of ideas raging in my head, I was at least young, innocent, and free that summer--consequently almost happy. 

Sometimes I would rise quite early in the morning, for I slept on theopen verandah, and the bright, horizontal beams of the morning sun wouldwake me up. Dressing myself quickly, I would tuck a towel and a Frenchnovel under my arm, and go off to bathe in the river in the shade ofa birch tree which stood half a verst from the house. Next, I wouldstretch myself on the grass and read--raising my eyes from time to timeto look at the surface of the river where it showed blue in the shadeof the trees, at the ripples caused by the first morning breeze, at theyellowing field of rye on the further bank, and at the bright-red sheenof the sunlight as it struck lower and lower down the white trunks ofthe birch-trees which, ranged in ranks one behind the other, graduallyreceded into the remote distance of the home park. At such moments Iwould feel joyously conscious of having within me the same young, freshforce of life as nature was everywhere exuding around me. When, however, the sky was overcast with grey clouds of morning and I felt chilly afterbathing, I would often start to walk at random through the fields andwoods, and joyously trail my wet boots in the fresh dew. All the whilemy head would be filled with vivid dreams concerning the heroes of mylast-read novel, and I would keep picturing to myself some leader of anarmy or some statesman or marvellously strong man or devoted lover oranother, and looking round me in, a nervous expectation that I shouldsuddenly descry HER somewhere near me, in a meadow or behind a tree. Yet, whenever these rambles led me near peasants engaged at their work, all my ignoring of the existence of the "common people" did notprevent me from experiencing an involuntary, overpowering sensation ofawkwardness; so that I always tried to avoid their seeing me. When theheat of the day had increased, it was not infrequently my habit--if theladies did not come out of doors for their morning tea--to go ramblingthrough the orchard and kitchen-garden, and to pluck ripe fruit there. Indeed, this was an occupation which furnished me with one of mygreatest pleasures. Let any one go into an orchard, and dive into themidst of a tall, thick, sprouting raspberry-bed. Above will be seen theclear, glowing sky, and, all around, the pale-green, prickly stemsof raspberry-trees where they grow mingled together in a tangle ofprofusion. At one's feet springs the dark-green nettle, with its slendercrown of flowers, while the broad-leaved burdock, with its bright-pink, prickly blossoms, overtops the raspberries (and even one's head) withits luxuriant masses, until, with the nettle, it almost meets thependent, pale-green branches of the old apple-trees where apples, roundand lustrous as bone, but as yet unripe, are mellowing in the heatof the sun. Below, again, are seen young raspberry-shoots, twiningthemselves around the partially withered, leafless parent plant, and stretching their tendrils towards the sunlight, with green, needle-shaped blades of grass and young, dew-coated pods peering throughlast year's leaves, and growing juicily green in the perennial shade, asthough they care nothing for the bright sunshine which is playing on theleaves of the apple-trees above them. In this density there is alwaysmoisture--always a smell of confined, perpetual shade, of cobwebs, fallen apples (turning black where they roll on the mouldy sod), raspberries, and earwigs of the kind which impel one to reach hastilyfor more fruit when one has inadvertently swallowed a member of thatinsect tribe with the last berry. At every step one's movements keepflushing the sparrows which always make their home in these depths, andone hears their fussy chirping and the beating of their tiny, flutteringwings against the stalks, and catches the low buzzing of a bumble beesomewhere, and the sound of the gardener's footsteps (it is half-daftAkim) on the path as he hums his eternal sing-song to himself. Then onemutters under one's breath, "No! Neither he nor any one else shallfind me here!" yet still one goes on stripping juicy berries from theirconical white pilasters, and cramming them into one's mouth. At length, one's legs soaked to the knees as one repeats, over and over again, somerubbish which keeps running in one's head, and one's hands and netherlimbs (despite the protection of one's wet trousers) thoroughly stungwith the nettles, one comes to the conclusion that the sun's raysare beating too straight upon one's head for eating to be any longerdesirable, and, sinking down into the tangle of greenery, one remainsthere--looking and listening, and continuing in mechanical fashion tostrip off one or two of the finer berries and swallow them. 

At eleven o'clock--that is to say, when the ladies had taken theirmorning tea and settled down to their occupations--I would repair tothe drawing-room. Near the first window, with its unbleached linen blindlowered to exclude the sunshine, but through the chink of which the sunkept throwing brilliant circles of light which hurt the eye to look atthem, there would be standing a screen, with flies quietly parading thewhiteness of its covering. Behind it would be seated Mimi, shaking herhead in an irritable manner, and constantly shifting from spot to spotto avoid the sunshine as at intervals it darted her from somewhere andlaid a streak of flame upon her hand or face. Through the other threewindows the sun would be throwing three squares of light, crossed withthe shadows of the window-frames, and where one of these patches markedthe unstained floor of the room there would be lying, in accordance withinvariable custom, Milka, with her ears pricked as she watched the fliespromenading the lighted space. Seated on a settee, Katenka would beknitting or reading aloud as from time to time she gave her whitesleeves (looking almost transparent in the sunshine) an impatient shake, or tossed her head with a frown to drive away some fly which had settledupon her thick auburn hair and was now buzzing in its tangles. Lubotshkawould either be walking up and down the room (her hands clasped behindher) until the moment should arrive when a movement would be madetowards the garden, or playing some piece of which every note had longbeen familiar to me. For my own part, I would sit down somewhere, andlisten to the music or the reading until such time as I myself shouldhave an opportunity of performing on the piano. After luncheon I wouldcondescend to take the girls out riding (since to go for a mere walkat that hour seemed to me unsuitable to my years and position inthe world), and these excursions of ours--in which I often took mycompanions through unaccustomed spots and dells--were very pleasant. Indeed, on some of these occasions I grew quite boyish, and thegirls would praise my riding and daring, and pretend that I was theirprotector. In the evening, if we had no guests with us, tea (served inthe dim verandah), would be followed by a walk round the homestead withPapa, and then I would stretch myself on my usual settee, and read andponder as of old, as I listened to Katenka or Lubotshka playing. Atother times, if I was alone in the drawing-room and Lubotshka wasperforming some old-time air, I would find myself laying my book down, and gazing through the open doorway on to the balcony at the pendent, sinuous branches of the tall birch-trees where they stood overshadowedby the coming night, and at the clear sky where, if one looked at itintently enough, misty, yellowish spots would appear suddenly, and thendisappear again. Next, as I listened to the sounds of the music waftedfrom the salon, and to the creaking of gates and the voices of thepeasant women when the cattle returned to the village, I would suddenlybethink me of Natalia Savishna and of Mamma and of Karl Ivanitch, andbecome momentarily sad. But in those days my spirit was so full of lifeand hope that such reminiscences only touched me in passing, and soonfled away again. 

After supper and (sometimes) a night stroll with some one in the garden(for I was afraid to walk down the dark avenues by myself), I wouldrepair to my solitary sleeping-place on the verandah--a proceedingwhich, despite the countless mosquitos which always devoured me, afforded me the greatest pleasure. If the moon was full, I frequentlyspent whole nights sitting up on my mattress, looking at the light andshade, listening to the sounds or stillness, dreaming of one matterand another (but more particularly of the poetic, voluptuous happinesswhich, in those days, I believed was to prove the acme of my felicity)and lamenting that until now it had only been given to me to IMAGINEthings. No sooner had every one dispersed, and I had seen lights passfrom the drawing-room to the upper chambers (whence female voices wouldpresently be heard, and the noise of windows opening and shutting), thanI would depart to the verandah, and walk up and down there as I listenedattentively to the sounds from the slumbering mansion. To this day, whenever I feel any expectation (no matter how small and baseless) ofrealising a fraction of some happiness of which I may be dreaming, Isomehow invariably fail to picture to myself what the imagined happinessis going to be like. 

At the least sound of bare footsteps, or of a cough, or of a snore, orof the rattling of a window, or of the rustling of a dress, I wouldleap from my mattress, and stand furtively gazing and listening, thrown, without any visible cause, into extreme agitation. But the lights woulddisappear from the upper rooms, the sounds of footsteps and talking giveplace to snores, the watchman begin his nightly tapping with his stick, the garden grow brighter and more mysterious as the streaks of lightvanished from the windows, the last candle pass from the pantry to thehall (throwing a glimmer into the dewy garden as it did so), and thestooping figure of Foka (decked in a nightcap, and carrying the candle)become visible to my eyes as he went to his bed. Often I would finda great and fearful pleasure in stealing over the grass, in the blackshadow of the house, until I had reached the hall window, where I wouldstand listening with bated breath to the snoring of the boy, to Foka'sgruntings (in the belief that no one heard him), and to the sound of hissenile voice as he drawled out the evening prayers. At length even hiscandle would be extinguished, and the window slammed down, so that Iwould find myself utterly alone; whereupon, glancing nervously fromside to side, lest haply I should see the white woman standing neara flower-bed or by my couch, I would run at full speed back to theverandah. Then, and only then, I would lie down with my face tothe garden, and, covering myself over, so far as possible, from themosquitos and bats, fall to gazing in front of me as I listened to thesounds of the night and dreamed of love and happiness. 

At such times everything would take on for me a different meaning. Thelook of the old birch trees, with the one side of their curling branchesshowing bright against the moonlit sky, and the other darkening thebushes and carriage-drive with their black shadows; the calm, richglitter of the pond, ever swelling like a sound; the moonlit sparkleof the dewdrops on the flowers in front of the verandah; the gracefulshadows of those flowers where they lay thrown upon the grey stonework;the cry of a quail on the far side of the pond; the voice of some onewalking on the high road; the quiet, scarcely audible scrunching of twoold birch trees against one another; the humming of a mosquito at my carunder the coverlet; the fall of an apple as it caught against abranch and rustled among the dry leaves; the leapings of frogs as theyapproached almost to the verandah-steps and sat with the moon shiningmysteriously on their green backs--all these things took on for me astrange significance--a significance of exceeding beauty and of infinitelove. Before me would rise SHE, with long black tresses and a high bust, but always mournful in her fairness, with bare hands and voluptuousarms. She loved me, and for one moment of her love I would sacrificemy whole life!--But the moon would go on rising higher and higher, andshining brighter and brighter, in the heavens; the rich sparkle of thepond would swell like a sound, and become ever more and more brilliant, while the shadows would grow blacker and blacker, and the sheen of themoon more and more transparent: until, as I looked at and listened toall this, something would say to me that SHE with the bare hands andvoluptuous arms did not represent ALL happiness, that love for herdid not represent ALL good; so that, the more I gazed at the full, high-riding moon, the higher would true beauty and goodness appear to meto lie, and the purer and purer they would seem--the nearer and nearerto Him who is the source of all beauty and all goodness. And tears of asort of unsatisfied, yet tumultuous, joy would fill my eyes. 

Always, too, I was alone; yet always, too, it seemed to me that, although great, mysterious Nature could draw the shining disc of themoon to herself, and somehow hold in some high, indefinite place thepale-blue sky, and be everywhere around me, and fill of herself theinfinity of space, while I was but a lowly worm, already defiled withthe poor, petty passions of humanity--always it seemed to me that, nevertheless, both Nature and the moon and I were one. 

XXXIII. OUR NEIGHBOURS

ON the first day after our arrival, I had been greatly astonished thatPapa should speak of our neighbours, the Epifanovs, as "nice people, "and still more so that he should go to call upon them. The fact was thatwe had long been at law over some land with this family. When a child, I had more than once heard Papa raging over the litigation, abusingthe Epifanovs, and warning people (so I understood him) against them. Likewise, I had heard Jakoff speak of them as "our enemies" and "blackpeople" and could remember Mamma requesting that their names shouldnever be mentioned in her presence, nor, indeed, in the house at all. 

From these data I, as a child, had arrived at the clear and assuredconviction that the Epifanovs were foemen of ours who would at any timestab or strangle both Papa and his sons if they should ever come acrossthem, as well as that they were "black people", in the literal sense ofthe term. Consequently, when, in the year that Mamma died, I chanced tocatch sight of Avdotia ("La Belle Flamande") on the occasion of a visitwhich she paid to my mother, I found it hard to believe that she didnot come of a family of negroes. All the same, I had the lowest possibleopinion of the family, and, for all that we saw much of them thatsummer, continued to be strongly prejudiced against them. As a matterof fact, their household only consisted of the mother (a widow of fifty, but a very well-preserved, cheery old woman), a beautiful daughter namedAvdotia, and a son, Peter, who was a stammerer, unmarried, and of veryserious disposition. 

For the last twenty years before her husband's death, Madame Epifanovhad lived apart from him--sometimes in St. Petersburg, where she hadrelatives, but more frequently at her village of Mitishtchi, whichstood some three versts from ours. Yet the neighbourhood had takento circulating such horrible tales concerning her mode of life thatMessalina was, by comparison, a blameless child: which was why my motherhad requested her name never to be mentioned. As a matter of fact, not one-tenth part of the most cruel of all gossip--the gossip ofcountry-houses--is worthy of credence; and although, when I first madeMadame's acquaintance, she had living with her in the house a clerknamed Mitusha, who had been promoted from a serf, and who, curled, pomaded, and dressed in a frockcoat of Circassian pattern, always stoodbehind his mistress's chair at luncheon, while from time to time sheinvited her guests to admire his handsome eyes and mouth, there wasnothing for gossip to take hold of. I believe, too, that since thetime--ten years earlier--when she had recalled her dutiful son Peterfrom the service, she had wholly changed her mode of living. It seemsher property had never been a large one--merely a hundred souls orso--[This refers, of course, to the days of serfdom. ]and that during herprevious life of gaiety she had spent a great deal. Consequently, when, some ten years ago, those portions of the property which had beenmortgaged and re-mortgaged had been foreclosed upon and compulsorilysold by auction, she had come to the conclusion that all theseunpleasant details of distress upon and valuation of her property hadbeen due not so much to failure to pay the interest as to the fact thatshe was a woman: wherefore she had written to her son (then serving withhis regiment) to come and save his mother from her embarrassments, andhe, like a dutiful son--conceiving that his first duty was to comforthis mother in her old age--had straightway resigned his commission (forall that he had been doing well in his profession, and was hoping soonto become independent), and had come to join her in the country. 

Despite his plain face, uncouth demeanour, and fault of stuttering, Peter was a man of unswerving principles and of the most extraordinarygood sense. Somehow--by small borrowings, sundry strokes of business, petitions for grace, and promises to repay--he contrived to carry on theproperty, and, making himself overseer, donned his father's greatcoat(still preserved in a drawer), dispensed with horses and carriages, discouraged guests from calling at Mitishtchi, fashioned his ownsleighs, increased his arable land and curtailed that of the serfs, felled his own timber, sold his produce in person, and saw to mattersgenerally. Indeed, he swore, and kept his oath, that, until alloutstanding debts were paid, he would never wear any clothes than hisfather's greatcoat and a corduroy jacket which he had made for himself, nor yet ride in aught but a country waggon, drawn by peasants' horses. This stoical mode of life he sought to apply also to his family, so faras the sympathetic respect which he conceived to be his mother's duewould allow of; so that, although, in the drawing-room, he would showher only stuttering servility, and fulfil all her wishes, and blame anyone who did not do precisely as she bid them, in his study or hisoffice he would overhaul the cook if she had served up so much as aduck without his orders, or any one responsible for sending a serf (eventhough at Madame's own bidding) to inquire after a neighbour's healthor for despatching the peasant girls into the wood to gather wildraspberries instead of setting them to weed the kitchen-garden. 

Within four years every debt had been repaid, and Peter had gone toMoscow and returned thence in a new jacket and tarantass. [A two-wheeledcarriage. ] Yet, despite this flourishing position of affairs, he stillpreserved the stoical tendencies in which, to tell the truth, he tooka certain vague pride before his family and strangers, since he wouldfrequently say with a stutter: "Any one who REALLY wishes to see mewill be glad to see me even in my dressing-gown, and to eat nothing butshtchi [Cabbage-soup. ] and kasha [Buckwheat gruel. ] at my table. " "Thatis what I eat myself, " he would add. In his every word and movementspoke pride based upon a consciousness of having sacrificed himself forhis mother and redeemed the property, as well as contempt for any onewho had not done something of the same kind. 

The mother and daughter were altogether different characters from Peter, as well as altogether different from one another. The former was one ofthe most agreeable, uniformly good-tempered, and cheerful women whom onecould possibly meet. Anything attractive and genuinely happy delightedher. Even the faculty of being pleased with the sight of young peopleenjoying themselves (it is only in the best-natured of elderly folk thatone meets with that TRAIT) she possessed to the full. On the otherhand, her daughter was of a grave turn of mind. Rather, she was of thatpeculiarly careless, absent-minded, gratuitously distant bearing whichcommonly distinguishes unmarried beauties. Whenever she tried to be gay, her gaiety somehow seemed to be unnatural to her, so that she alwaysappeared to be laughing either at herself or at the persons to whom shewas speaking or at the world in general--a thing which, possibly, shehad no real intention of doing. Often I asked myself in astonishmentwhat she could mean when she said something like, "Yes, I know howterribly good-looking I am, " or, "Of course every one is in love withme, " and so forth. Her mother was a person always busy, since she hada passion for housekeeping, gardening, flowers, canaries, and prettytrinkets. Her rooms and garden, it is true, were small and poorlyfitted-up, yet everything in them was so neat and methodical, and boresuch a general air of that gentle gaiety which one hears expressed ina waltz or polka, that the word "toy" by which guests often expressedtheir praise of it all exactly suited her surroundings. She herselfwas a "toy"--being petite, slender, fresh-coloured, small, andpretty-handed, and invariably gay and well-dressed. The only fault inher was that a slight over-prominence of the dark-blue veins on herlittle hands rather marred the general effect of her appearance. On theother hand, her daughter scarcely ever did anything at all. Not only hadshe no love for trifling with flowers and trinkets, but she neglectedher personal exterior, and only troubled to dress herself well whenguests happened to call. Yet, on returning to the room in societycostume, she always looked extremely handsome--save for that cold, uniform expression of eyes and smile which is common to all beauties. Infact, her strictly regular, beautiful face and symmetrical figure alwaysseemed to be saying to you, "Yes, you may look at me. "

At the same time, for all the mother's liveliness of disposition and thedaughter's air of indifference and abstraction, something told one thatthe former was incapable of feeling affection for anything that wasnot pretty and gay, but that Avdotia, on the contrary, was one of thosenatures which, once they love, are willing to sacrifice their whole lifefor the man they adore. 

XXXIV. MY FATHER'S SECOND MARRIAGE

MY father was forty-eight when he took as his second wife AvdotiaVassilievna Epifanov. 

I suspect that when, that spring, he had departed for the country withthe girls, he had been in that communicatively happy, sociable mood inwhich gamblers usually find themselves who have retired from play afterwinning large stakes. He had felt that he still had a fortune left tohim which, so long as he did not squander it on gaming, might beused for our advancement in life. Moreover, it was springtime, he wasunexpectedly well supplied with ready money, he was alone, and he hadnothing to do. As he conversed with Jakoff on various matters, andremembered both the interminable suit with the Epifanovs and Avdotia'sbeauty (it was a long while since he had seen her), I can imagine himsaying: "How do you think we ought to act in this suit, Jakoff? My ideais simply to let the cursed land go. Eh? What do you think about it?"I can imagine, too, how, thus interrogated, Jakoff twirled his fingersbehind his back in a deprecatory sort of way, and proceeded to arguethat it all the same, "Peter Alexandritch, we are in the right. "Nevertheless, I further conjecture, Papa ordered the dogcart to be gotready, put on his fashionable olive-coloured driving-coat, brushed upthe remnants of his hair, sprinkled his clothes with scent, and, greatlypleased to think that he was acting a la seignior (as well as, evenmore, revelling in the prospect of soon seeing a pretty woman), droveoff to visit his neighbours. 

I can imagine, too, that when the flustered housemaid ran to informPeter Vassilievitch that Monsieur Irtenieff himself had called, Peteranswered angrily, "Well, what has he come for?" and, stepping softlyabout the house, first went into his study to put on his old soiledjacket, and then sent down word to the cook that on no accountwhatever--no, not even if she were ordered to do so by the mistressherself--was she to add anything to luncheon. 

Since, later, I often saw Papa with Peter, I can form a very good ideaof this first interview between them. I can imagine that, despite Papa'sproposal to end the suit in a peaceful manner, Peter was morose andresentful at the thought of having sacrificed his career to his mother, and at Papa having done nothing of the kind--a by no means surprisingcircumstance, Peter probably said to himself. Next, I can see Papataking no notice of this ill-humour, but cracking quips and jests, whilePeter gradually found himself forced to treat him as a humorist withwhom he felt offended one moment and inclined to be reconciled the next. Indeed, with his instinct for making fun of everything, Papa often usedto address Peter as "Colonel;" and though I can remember Peter oncereplying, with an unusually violent stutter and his face scarletwith indignation, that he had never been a c-c-colonel, but only al-l-lieutenant, Papa called him "Colonel" again before another fiveminutes were out. 

Lubotshka told me that, up to the time of Woloda's and my arrival fromMoscow, there had been daily meetings with the Epifanovs, and thatthings had been very lively, since Papa, who had a genius for arranging, everything with a touch of originality and wit, as well as in a simpleand refined manner, had devised shooting and fishing parties andfireworks for the Epifanovs' benefit. All these festivities--so saidLubotshka--would have gone off splendidly but for the intolerable Peter, who had spoilt everything by his puffing and stuttering. After ourcoming, however, the Epifanovs only visited us twice, and we went onceto their house, while after St. Peter's Day (on which, it being Papa'snameday, the Epifanovs called upon us in common with a crowd of otherguests) our relations with that family came entirely to an end, and, infuture, only Papa went to see them. 

During the brief period when I had opportunities of seeing Papa andDunetchka (as her mother called Avdotia) together, this is what Iremarked about them. Papa remained unceasingly in the same buoyant moodas had so greatly struck me on the day after our arrival. So gay andyouthful and full of life and happy did he seem that the beams ofhis felicity extended themselves to all around him, and involuntarilycommunicated to them a similar frame of mind. He never stirred fromAvdotia's side so long as she was in the room, but either kept on plyingher with sugary-sweet compliments which made me feel ashamed for himor, with his gaze fixed upon her with an air at once passionate andcomplacent, sat hitching his shoulder and coughing as from time to timehe smiled and whispered something in her ear. Yet throughout he worethe same expression of raillery as was peculiar to him even in the mostserious matters. 

As a rule, Avdotia herself seemed to catch the infection of thehappiness which sparkled at this period in Papa's large blue eyes; yetthere were moments also when she would be seized with such a fit ofshyness that I, who knew the feeling well, was full of sympathy andcompassion as I regarded her embarrassment. At moments of this kind sheseemed to be afraid of every glance and every movement--to be supposingthat every one was looking at her, every one thinking of no one buther, and that unfavourably. She would glance timidly from one person toanother, the colour coming and going in her cheeks, and then beginto talk loudly and defiantly, but, for the most part, nonsense; untilpresently, realising this, and supposing that Papa and every one elsehad heard her, she would blush more painfully than ever. Yet Papa nevernoticed her nonsense, for he was too much taken up with coughing andwith gazing at her with his look of happy, triumphant devotion. Inoticed, too, that, although these fits of shyness attacked Avdotia, without any visible cause, they not infrequently ensued upon Papa'smention of one or another young and beautiful woman. Frequenttransitions from depression to that strange, awkward gaiety of hersto which I have referred before the repetition of favourite words andturns of speech of Papa's; the continuation of discussions with otherswhich Papa had already begun--all these things, if my father had notbeen the principal actor in the matter and I had been a little older, would have explained to me the relations subsisting between him andAvdotia. At the time, however, I never surmised them--no, not even whenPapa received from her brother Peter a letter which so upset him thatnot again until the end of August did he go to call upon the Epifanovs'. Then, however, he began his visits once more, and ended by informingus, on the day before Woloda and I were to return to Moscow, that he wasabout to take Avdotia Vassilievna Epifanov to be his wife. 

XXXV. HOW WE RECEIVED THE NEWS

Yet, even on the eve of the official announcement, every one had learntof the matter, and was discussing it. Mimi never left her room thatday, and wept copiously. Katenka kept her company, and only came outfor luncheon, with a grieved expression on her face which was manifestlyborrowed from her mother. Lubotshka, on the contrary, was very cheerful, and told us after luncheon that she knew of a splendid secret which shewas going to tell no one. 

"There is nothing so splendid about your secret, " said Woloda, who didnot in the least share her satisfaction. "If you were capable of anyserious thought at all, you would understand that it is a very badlookout for us. "

Lubotshka stared at him in amazement, and said no more. After the mealwas over, Woloda made a feint of taking me by the arm, and then, fearingthat this would seem too much like "affection, " nudged me gently by theelbow, and beckoned me towards the salon. 

"You know, I suppose, what the secret is of which Lubotshka wasspeaking?" he said when he was sure that we were alone. It was seldomthat he and I spoke together in confidence: with the result that, whenever it came about, we felt a kind of awkwardness in one another'spresence, and "boys began to jump about" in our eyes, as Wolodaexpressed it. On the present occasion, however, he answered theexcitement in my eyes with a grave, fixed look which said: "You need notbe surprised, for we are brothers, and we have to consider an importantfamily matter. " I understood him, and he went on:

"You know, I suppose, that Papa is going to marry Avdotia Epifanov?"

I nodded, for I had already heard so. "Well, it is not a good thing, "continued Woloda. 

"Why so?"

"Why?" he repeated irritably. "Because it will be so pleasant, won'tit, to have this stuttering 'colonel' and all his family for relations!Certainly she seems nice enough, as yet; but who knows what she willturn out to be later? It won't matter much to you or myself, butLubotshka will soon be making her debut, and it will hardly be nicefor her to have such a 'belle mere' as this--a woman who speaks Frenchbadly, and has no manners to teach her. "

Although it seemed odd to hear Woloda criticising Papa's choice socoolly, I felt that he was right. 

"Why is he marrying her?" I asked. 

"Oh, it is a hole-and-corner business, and God only knows why, "he answered. "All I know is that her brother, Peter, tried to makeconditions about the marriage, and that, although at first Papa wouldnot hear of them, he afterwards took some fancy or knight-errantry oranother into his head. But, as I say, it is a hole-and-corner business. I am only just beginning to understand my father "--the fact that Wolodacalled Papa "my father" instead of "Papa" somehow hurt me--"and though Ican see that he is kind and clever, he is irresponsible and frivolous toa degree that--Well, the whole thing is astonishing. He cannot so muchas look upon a woman calmly. You yourself know how he falls in love withevery one that he meets. You know it, and so does Mimi. "

"What do you mean?" I said. 

"What I say. Not long ago I learnt that he used to be in love with Mimiherself when he was a young man, and that he used to send her poetry, and that there really was something between them. Mimi is heart-soreabout it to this day"--and Woloda burst out laughing. 

"Impossible!" I cried in astonishment. 

"But the principal thing at this moment, " went on Woloda, becomingserious again, and relapsing into French, "is to think how delighted allour relations will be with this marriage! Why, she will probably havechildren!"

Woloda's prudence and forethought struck me so forcibly that I had noanswer to make. Just at this moment Lubotshka approached us. 

"So you know?" she said with a joyful face. 

"Yes, " said Woloda. "Still, I am surprised at you, Lubotshka. You are nolonger a baby in long clothes. Why should you be so pleased because Papais going to marry a piece of trash?"

At this Lubotshka's face fell, and she became serious. 

"Oh, Woloda!" she exclaimed. "Why 'a piece of trash' indeed? How can youdare to speak of Avdotia like that? If Papa is going to marry her shecannot be 'trash. '"

"No, not trash, so to speak, but--"

"No 'buts' at all!" interrupted Lubotshka, flaring up. "You have neverheard me call the girl whom you are in love with 'trash!' How, then, canyou speak so of Papa and a respectable woman? Although you are my elderbrother, I won't allow you to speak like that! You ought not to!"

"Mayn't I even express an opinion about--"

"No, you mayn't!" repeated Lubotshka. "No one ought to criticise such afather as ours. Mimi has the right to, but not you, however much you maybe the eldest brother. "

"Oh you don't understand anything, " said Woloda contemptuously. "Tryand do so. How can it be a good thing that a 'Dunetchka' of an Epifanovshould take the place of our dead Mamma?"

For a moment Lubotshka was silent. Then the tears suddenly came into hereyes. 

"I knew that you were conceited, but I never thought that you could becruel, " she said, and left us. 

"Pshaw!" said Woloda, pulling a serio-comic face and make-believe, stupid eyes. "That's what comes of arguing with them. " Evidently he feltthat he was at fault in having so far forgot himself as to descend todiscuss matters at all with Lubotshka. 

Next day the weather was bad, and neither Papa nor the ladies had comedown to morning tea when I entered the drawing-room. There had beencold rain in the night, and remnants of the clouds from which it haddescended were still scudding across the sky, with the sun's luminousdisc (not yet risen to any great height) showing faintly throughthem. It was a windy, damp, grey morning. The door into the garden wasstanding open, and pools left by the night's rain were drying on thedamp-blackened flags of the terrace. The open door was swinging on itsiron hinges in the wind, and all the paths looked wet and muddy. The oldbirch trees with their naked white branches, the bushes, the turf, the nettles, the currant-trees, the elders with the pale side of theirleaves turned upwards--all were dashing themselves about, and looking asthough they were trying to wrench themselves free from their roots. Fromthe avenue of lime-trees showers of round, yellow leaves were flyingthrough the air in tossing, eddying circles, and strewing the wetroad and soaked aftermath of the hayfield with a clammy carpet. At themoment, my thoughts were wholly taken up with my father's approachingmarriage and with the point of view from which Woloda regarded it. Thefuture seemed to me to bode no good for any of us. I felt distressed tothink that a woman who was not only a stranger but young should be goingto associate with us in so many relations of life, without having anyright to do so--nay, that this young woman was going to usurp the placeof our dead mother. I felt depressed, and kept thinking more and morethat my father was to blame in the matter. Presently I heard his voiceand Woloda's speaking together in the pantry, and, not wishing to meetPapa just then, had just left the room when I was pursued by Lubotshka, who said that Papa wanted to see me. 

He was standing in the drawing-room, with his hand resting on the piano, and was gazing in my direction with an air at once grave and impatient. His face no longer wore the youthful, gay expression which had struck mefor so long, but, on the contrary, looked sad. Woloda was walking aboutthe room with a pipe in his hand. I approached my father, and bade himgood morning. 

"Well, my children, " he said firmly, with a lift of his head and inthe peculiarly hurried manner of one who wishes to announce somethingobviously unwelcome, but no longer admitting of reconsideration, "youknow, I suppose, that I am going to marry Avdotia Epifanov. " He pauseda moment. "Hitherto I had had no desire for any one to succeed yourmother, but"--and again he paused--"it-it is evidently my fate. Dunetchka is an excellent, kind girl, and no longer in her first youth. I hope, therefore, my children, that you will like her, and she, I know, will be sincerely fond of you, for she is a good woman. And now, " hewent on, addressing himself more particularly to Woloda and myself, andhaving the appearance of speaking hurriedly in order to prevent us frominterrupting him, "it is time for you to depart, while I myself amgoing to stay here until the New Year, and then to follow you to Moscowwith"--again he hesitated a moment--"my wife and Lubotshka. " It hurt meto see my father standing as though abashed and at fault before us, soI moved a little nearer him, but Woloda only went on walking about theroom with his head down, and smoking. 

"So, my children, that is what your old father has planned to do, "concluded Papa--reddening, coughing, and offering Woloda and myself hishands. Tears were in his eyes as he said this, and I noticed, too, thatthe hand which he was holding out to Woloda (who at that moment chancedto be at the other end of the room) was shaking slightly. The sight ofthat shaking hand gave me an unpleasant shock, for I remembered thatPapa had served in 1812, and had been, as every one knew, a braveofficer. Seizing the great veiny hand, I covered it with kisses, andhe squeezed mine hard in return. Then, with a sob amid his tears, hesuddenly threw his arms around Lubotshka's dark head, and kissed heragain and again on the eyes. Woloda pretended that he had dropped hispipe, and, bending down, wiped his eyes furtively with the back of hishand. Then, endeavouring to escape notice, he left the room. 

XXXVI. THE UNIVERSITY

THE wedding was to take place in two weeks' time, but, as our lectureshad begun already, Woloda and myself were forced to return to Moscow atthe beginning of September. The Nechludoffs had also returned from thecountry, and Dimitri (with whom, on parting, I had made an agreementthat we should correspond frequently with the result, of course, that wehad never once written to one another) came to see us immediatelyafter our arrival, and arranged to escort me to my first lecture on themorrow. 

It was a beautiful sunny day. No sooner had I entered the auditoriumthan I felt my personality entirely disappear amid the swarm oflight-hearted youths who were seething tumultuously through everydoorway and corridor under the influence of the sunlight pouring throughthe great windows. I found the sense of being a member of this hugecommunity very pleasing, yet there were few among the throng whom Iknew, and that only on terms of a nod and a "How do you do, Irtenieff?"

All around me men were shaking hands and chatting together--from everyside came expressions of friendship, laughter, jests, and badinage. Everywhere I could feel the tie which bound this youthful society inone, and everywhere, too, I could feel that it left me out. Yet thisimpression lasted for a moment only, and was succeeded, together withthe vexation which it had caused, by the idea that it was best thatI should not belong to that society, but keep to my own circle ofgentlemen; wherefore I proceeded to seat myself upon the third bench, with, as neighbours, Count B. , Baron Z. , the Prince R. , Iwin, andsome other young men of the same class with none of whom, however, wasacquainted save with Iwin and Count B. Yet the look which these younggentlemen threw at me at once made me feel that I was not of their set, and I turned to observe what was going on around me. Semenoff, withgrey, matted hair, white teeth, and tunic flying open, was seated alittle distance off, and leaning forward on his elbows as he nibbleda pen, while the gymnasium student who had come out first in theexaminations had established himself on the front bench, and, with ablack stock coming half-way up his cheek, was toying with the silverwatch-chain which adorned his satin waistcoat. On a bench in a raisedpart of the hall I could descry Ikonin (evidently he had contrived toenter the University somehow!), and hear him fussily proclaiming, in allthe glory of blue piped trousers which completely hid his boots, that hewas now seated on Parnassus. Ilinka--who had surprised me by giving me abow not only cold, but supercilious, as though to remind me that here wewere all equals--was just in front of me, with his legs resting in freeand easy style on another bench (a hit, somehow I thought, at myself), and conversing with a student as he threw occasional glances in mydirection. Iwin's set by my side were talking in French, yet every wordwhich I overheard of their conversation seemed to me both stupid andincorrect ("Ce n'est pas francais, " I thought to myself), while allthe attitudes, utterances, and doings of Semenoff, Ilinka, and the reststruck me as uniformly coarse, ungentlemanly, and "comme il ne fautpas. "

Thus, attached to no particular set, I felt isolated and unable to makefriends, and so grew resentful. One of the students on the bench infront of me kept biting his nails, which were raw to the quick already, and this so disgusted me that I edged away from him. In short, Iremember finding my first day a most depressing affair. 

When the professor entered, and there was a general stir and a cessationof chatter, I remember throwing a scornful glance at him, as alsothat he began his discourse with a sentence which I thought devoid ofmeaning. I had expected the lecture to be, from first to last, so cleverthat not a word ought to be taken from or added to it. Disappointed inthis, I at once proceeded to draw beneath the heading "First Lecture"with which I had adorned my beautifully-bound notebook no less thaneighteen faces in profile, joined together in a sort of chaplet, andonly occasionally moved my hand along the page in order to give theprofessor (who, I felt sure, must be greatly interested in me) theimpression that I was writing something. In fact, at this very firstlecture I came to the decision which I maintained to the end of mycourse, namely, that it was unnecessary, and even stupid, to take downevery word said by every professor. 

At subsequent lectures, however, I did not feel my isolation sostrongly, since I made several acquaintances and got into the way ofshaking hands and entering into conversation. Yet for some reason oranother no real intimacy ever sprang up between us, and I often foundmyself depressed and only feigning cheerfulness. With the set whichcomprised Iwin and "the aristocrats, " as they were generally known, Icould not make any headway at all, for, as I now remember, I was alwaysshy and churlish to them, and nodded to them only when they nodded tome; so that they had little inducement to desire my acquaintance. Withmost of the other students, however, this arose from quite a differentcause. As soon as ever I discerned friendliness on the part of acomrade, I at once gave him to understand that I went to luncheon withPrince Ivan Ivanovitch and kept my own drozhki. All this I said merelyto show myself in the most favourable light in his eyes, and to inducehim to like me all the more; yet almost invariably the only result ofmy communicating to him the intelligence concerning the drozhki and myrelationship to Prince Ivan Ivanovitch was that, to my astonishment, heat once adopted a cold and haughty bearing towards me. 

Among us we had a Crown student named Operoff--a very modest, industrious, and clever young fellow, who always offered one his handlike a slab of wood (that is to say, without closing his fingers ormaking the slightest movement with them); with the result that hiscomrades often did the same to him in jest, and called it the "dealboard" way of shaking hands. He and I nearly always sat next to oneanother, and discussed matters generally. In particular he pleased mewith the freedom with which he would criticise the professors as hepointed out to me with great clearness and acumen the merits or demeritsof their respective ways of teaching and made occasional fun of them. Such remarks I found exceedingly striking and diverting when utteredin his quiet, mincing voice. Nevertheless he never let a lecturepass without taking careful notes of it in his fine handwriting, and eventually we decided to join forces, and to do our preparationtogether. Things had progressed to the point of his always lookingpleased when I took my usual seat beside him when, unfortunately, I oneday found it necessary to inform him that, before her death, my motherhad besought my father never to allow us to enter for a governmentscholarship, as well as that I myself considered Crown students, nomatter how clever, to be-"well, they are not GENTLEMEN, " I concluded, though beginning to flounder a little and grow red. At the momentOperoff said nothing, but at subsequent lectures he ceased to greet meor to offer me his board-like hand, and never attempted to talk to me, but, as soon as ever I sat down, he would lean his head upon his arm, and purport to be absorbed in his notebooks. I was surprised at thissudden coolness, but looked upon it as infra dig, "pour un jeunehomme de bonne maison" to curry favour with a mere Crown student ofan Operoff, and so left him severely alone--though I confess that hisaloofness hurt my feelings. On one occasion I arrived before him, and, since the lecture was to be delivered by a popular professor whomstudents came to hear who did not usually attend such functions, I foundalmost every seat occupied. Accordingly I secured Operoff's place formyself by spreading my notebooks on the desk before it; after which Ileft the room again for a moment. When I returned I perceived that myparaphernalia had been relegated to the bench behind, and the placetaken by Operoff himself. I remarked to him that I had already securedit by placing my notebooks there. 

"I know nothing about that, " he replied sharply, yet without looking upat me. 

"I tell you I placed my notebooks there, " I repeated, purposely tryingto bluster, in the hope of intimidating him. "Every one saw me do it, "I added, including the students near me in my glance. Several of themlooked at me with curiosity, yet none of them spoke. 

"Seats cannot be booked here, " said Operoff. "Whoever first sits downin a place keeps it, " and, settling himself angrily where he was, heflashed at me a glance of defiance. 

"Well, that only means that you are a cad, " I said. 

I have an idea that he murmured something about my being "a stupid youngidiot, " but I decided not to hear it. What would be the use, I askedmyself, of my hearing it? That we should brawl like a couple of manantsover less than nothing? (I was very fond of the word manants, and oftenused it for meeting awkward junctures. ) Perhaps I should have saidsomething more had not, at that moment, a door slammed and the professor(dressed in a blue frockcoat, and shuffling his feet as he walked)ascended the rostrum. 

Nevertheless, when the examination was about to come on, and I had needof some one's notebooks, Operoff remembered his promise to lend me his, and we did our preparation together. 

XXXVII. AFFAIRS OF THE HEART

Affaires du coeur exercised me greatly that winter. In fact, I fell inlove three times. The first time, I became passionately enamoured of abuxom lady whom I used to see riding at Freitag's riding-school; withthe result that every day when she was taking a lesson there (that is tosay, every Tuesday and Friday) I used to go to gaze at her, but alwaysin such a state of trepidation lest I should be seen that I stood a longway off, and bolted directly I thought her likely to approach the spotwhere I was standing. Likewise, I used to turn round so precipitatelywhenever she appeared to be glancing in my direction that I neversaw her face well, and to this day do not know whether she was reallybeautiful or not. 

Dubkoff, who was acquainted with her, surprised me one day in theriding-school, where I was lurking concealed behind the lady's groomsand the fur wraps which they were holding, and, having heard fromDimitri of my infatuation, frightened me so terribly by proposing tointroduce me to the Amazon that I fled incontinently from the school, and was prevented by the mere thought that possibly he had told herabout me from ever entering the place again, or even from hiding behindher grooms, lest I should encounter her. 

Whenever I fell in love with ladies whom I did not know, and especiallymarried women, I experienced a shyness a thousand times greater than Ihad ever felt with Sonetchka. I dreaded beyond measure that my divinityshould learn of my passion, or even of my existence, since I felt surethat, once she had done so, she would be so terribly offended that Ishould never be forgiven for my presumption. And indeed, if the Amazonreferred to above had ever come to know how I used to stand behind thegrooms and dream of seizing her and carrying her off to some countryspot--if she had ever come to know how I should have lived with herthere, and how I should have treated her, it is probable that she wouldhave had very good cause for indignation! But I always felt that, onceI got to know her, she would straightway divine these thoughts, andconsider herself insulted by my acquaintance. 

As my second affaire du coeur, I, (for the third time) fell in love withSonetchka when I saw her at her sister's. My second passion for her hadlong since come to an end, but I became enamoured of her this third timethrough Lubotshka sending me a copy-book in which Sonetchka had copiedsome extracts from Lermontoff's The Demon, with certain of the moresubtly amorous passages underlined in red ink and marked with pressedflowers. Remembering how Woloda had been wont to kiss his inamorata'spurse last year, I essayed to do the same thing now; and really, whenalone in my room in the evenings and engaged in dreaming as I looked ata flower or occasionally pressed it to my lips, I would feel a certainpleasantly lachrymose mood steal over me, and remain genuinely in love(or suppose myself to be so) for at least several days. 

Finally, my third affaire du coeur that winter was connected with thelady with whom Woloda was in love, and who used occasionally to visitat our house. Yet, in this damsel, as I now remember, there was not asingle beautiful feature to be found--or, at all events, none of thosewhich usually pleased me. She was the daughter of a well-known Moscowlady of light and leading, and, petite and slender, wore long flaxencurls after the English fashion, and could boast of a transparentprofile. Every one said that she was even cleverer and more learnedthan her mother, but I was never in a position to judge of that, since, overcome with craven bashfulness at the mere thought of her intellectand accomplishments, I never spoke to her alone but once, and thenwith unaccountable trepidation. Woloda's enthusiasm, however (for thepresence of an audience never prevented him from giving vent to hisrapture), communicated itself to me so strongly that I also becameenamoured of the lady. Yet, conscious that he would not be pleased toknow that two brothers were in love with the same girl, I never told himof my condition. On the contrary, I took special delight in the thoughtthat our mutual love for her was so pure that, though its object was, inboth cases, the same charming being, we remained friends and ready, ifever the occasion should arise, to sacrifice ourselves for one another. Yet I have an idea that, as regards self-sacrifice, he did not quiteshare my views, for he was so passionately in love with the lady thatonce he was for giving a member of the diplomatic corps, who was saidto be going to marry her, a slap in the face and a challenge to a duel;but, for my part, I would gladly have sacrificed my feelings for hissake, seeing that the fact that the only remark I had ever addressed toher had been on the subject of the dignity of classical music, and thatmy passion, for all my efforts to keep it alive, expired the followingweek, would have rendered it the more easy for me to do so. 

XXXVIII. THE WORLD

As regards those worldly delights to which I had intended, on enteringthe University, to surrender myself in imitation of my brother, Iunderwent a complete disillusionment that winter. Woloda danced a greatdeal, and Papa also went to balls with his young wife, but I appearedto be thought either too young or unfitted for such delights, and no oneinvited me to the houses where balls were being given. Yet, in spite ofmy vow of frankness with Dimitri, I never told him (nor any one else)how much I should have liked to go to those dances, and how I felt hurtat being forgotten and (apparently) taken for the philosopher that Ipretended to be. 

Nevertheless, a reception was to be given that winter at the PrincessKornakoff's, and to it she sent us personal invitations--to myself amongthe rest! Consequently, I was to attend my first ball. Before starting, Woloda came into my room to see how I was dressing myself--an act onhis part which greatly surprised me and took me aback. In my opinion (itmust be understood) solicitude about one's dress was a shameful thing, and should be kept under, but he seemed to think it a thing so naturaland necessary that he said outright that he was afraid I should be putout of countenance on that score. Accordingly, he bid me don my patentleather boots, and was horrified to find that I wanted to put on glovesof peau de chamois. Next, he adjusted my watch-chain in a particularmanner, and carried me off to a hairdresser's near the Kuznetski Bridgeto have my locks coiffured. That done, he withdrew to a little distanceand surveyed me. 

"Yes, he looks right enough now" said he to the hairdresser. "Only--couldn't you smooth those tufts of his in front a little?" Yet, for all that Monsieur Charles treated my forelocks with one essence andanother, they persisted in rising up again when ever I put on my hat. Infact, my curled and tonsured figure seemed to me to look far worse thanit had done before. My only hope of salvation lay in an affectation ofuntidiness. Only in that guise would my exterior resemble anything atall. Woloda, apparently, was of the same opinion, for he begged me toundo the curls, and when I had done so and still looked unpresentable, he ceased to regard me at all, but throughout the drive to theKornakoffs remained silent and depressed. 

Nevertheless, I entered the Kornakoffs' mansion boldly enough, and itwas only when the Princess had invited me to dance, and I, for somereason or another (though I had driven there with no other thought inmy head than to dance well), had replied that I never indulged in thatpastime, that I began to blush, and, left solitary among a crowd ofstrangers, became plunged in my usual insuperable and ever-growingshyness. In fact, I remained silent on that spot almost the wholeevening!

Nevertheless, while a waltz was in progress, one of the young princessescame to me and asked me, with the sort of official kindness common toall her family, why I was not dancing. I can remember blushing hotlyat the question, but at the same time feeling--for all my effortsto prevent it--a self-satisfied smile steal over my face as I begantalking, in the most inflated and long-winded French, such rubbish aseven now, after dozens of years, it shames me to recall. It musthave been the effect of the music, which, while exciting my nervoussensibility, drowned (as I supposed) the less intelligible portion of myutterances. Anyhow, I went on speaking of the exalted company present, and of the futility of men and women, until I had got myself into sucha tangle that I was forced to stop short in the middle of a word of asentence which I found myself powerless to conclude. 

Even the worldly-minded young Princess was shocked by my conduct, andgazed at me in reproach; whereat I burst out laughing. At this criticalmoment, Woloda, who had remarked that I was conversing with greatanimation, and probably was curious to know what excuses I was makingfor not dancing, approached us with Dubkoff. Seeing, however, my smilingface and the Princess's frightened mien, as well as overhearing theappalling rubbish with which I concluded my speech, he turned red inthe face, and wheeled round again. The Princess also rose and left me. Icontinued to smile, but in such a state of agony from the consciousnessof my stupidity that I felt ready to sink into the floor. Likewise Ifelt that, come what might, I must move about and say something, inorder to effect a change in my position. Accordingly I approachedDubkoff, and asked him if he had danced many waltzes with her thatnight. This I feigned to say in a gay and jesting manner, yet in realityI was imploring help of the very Dubkoff to whom I had cried "Hold yourtongue!" on the night of the matriculation dinner. By way of answer, hemade as though he had not heard me, and turned away. Next, I approachedWoloda, and said with an effort and in a similar tone of assumed gaiety:"Hullo, Woloda! Are you played out yet?" He merely looked at me as muchas to say, "You wouldn't speak to me like that if we were alone, " andleft me without a word, in the evident fear that I might continue toattach myself to his person. 

"My God! Even my own brother deserts me!" I thought to myself. 

Yet somehow I had not the courage to depart, but remained standing whereI was until the very end of the evening. At length, when every one wasleaving the room and crowding into the hall, and a footman slipped mygreatcoat on to my shoulders in such a way as to tilt up my cap, I gavea dreary, half-lachrymose smile, and remarked to no one in particular:"Comme c'est gracieux!"

XXXIX. THE STUDENTS' FEAST

NOTWITHSTANDING that, as yet, Dimitri's influence had kept me fromindulging in those customary students' festivities known as kutezhi or"wines, " that winter saw me participate in such a function, and carryaway with me a not over-pleasant impression of it. This is how it cameabout. 

At a lecture soon after the New Year, Baron Z. --a tall, light-hairedyoung fellow of very serious demeanour and regular features--invited usall to spend a sociable evening with him. By "us all", I mean all themen more or less "comme il faut", of our course, and exclusive ofGrap, Semenoff, Operoff, and commoners of that sort. Woloda smiledcontemptuously when he heard that I was going to a "wine" of firstcourse men, but I looked to derive great and unusual pleasure from this, to me, novel method of passing the time. Accordingly, punctually at theappointed hour of eight I presented myself at the Baron's. 

Our host, in an open tunic and white waistcoat, received his guestsin the brilliantly lighted salon and drawing-room of the small mansionwhere his parents lived--they having given up their reception rooms tohim for the evening for purposes of this party. In the corridor couldbe seen the heads and skirts of inquisitive domestics, while in thedining-room I caught a glimpse of a dress which I imagined to belong tothe Baroness herself. The guests numbered a score, and were all ofthem students except Herr Frost (in attendance upon Iwin) and a tall, red-faced gentleman who was superintending the feast and who wasintroduced to every one as a relative of the Baron's and a formerstudent of the University of Dorpat. At first, the excessive brilliancyand formal appointments of the reception-rooms had such a chillingeffect upon this youthful company that every one involuntarily huggedthe walls, except a few bolder spirits and the ex-Dorpat student, who, with his waistcoat already unbuttoned, seemed to be in every room, andin every corner of every room, at once, and filled the whole place withhis resonant, agreeable, never-ceasing tenor voice. The remainder of theguests preferred either to remain silent or to talk in discreet tones ofprofessors, faculties, examinations, and other serious and interestingmatters. Yet every one, without exception, kept watching the door ofthe dining-room, and, while trying to conceal the fact, wearing anexpression which said: "Come! It is time to begin. " I too felt thatit was time to begin, and awaited the beginning with pleasurableimpatience. 

After footmen had handed round tea among the guests, the Dorpat studentasked Frost in Russian:

"Can you make punch, Frost?"

"Oh ja!" replied Frost with a joyful flourish of his heels, and theother went on:

"Then do you set about it" (they addressed each other in the secondperson singular, as former comrades at Dorpat). Frost accordinglydeparted to the dining-room, with great strides of his bowed, muscularlegs, and, after some walking backwards and forwards, deposited upon thedrawing-room table a large punchbowl, accompanied by a ten-pound sugarloaf supported on three students' swords placed crosswise. Meanwhile, the Baron had been going round among his guests as they sat regardingthe punch-bowl, and addressing them, with a face of immutable gravity, in the formula: "I beg of you all to drink of this loving-cup in studentfashion, that there may be good-fellowship among the members of ourcourse. Unbutton your waistcoats, or take them off altogether, as youplease. " Already the Dorpat student had divested himself of his tunicand rolled up his white shirt-sleeves above his elbows, and now, planting his feet firmly apart, he proceeded to set fire to the rum inthe punch-bowl. 

"Gentlemen, put out the candles!" he cried with a sudden shout so loudand insistent that we seemed all of us to be shouting at once. However, we still went on silently regarding the punch-bowl and the white shirtof the Dorpat student, with a feeling that a moment of great solemnitywas approaching. 

"Put out the lights, Frost, I tell you!" the Dorpat student shoutedagain. Evidently the punch was now sufficiently burnt. Accordinglyevery one helped to extinguish the candles, until the room was in totaldarkness save for a spot where the white shirts and hands of the threestudents supporting the sugarloaf on their crossed swords were lit up bythe lurid flames from the bowl. Yet the Dorpat student's tenor voicewas not the only one to be heard, for in different quarters of theroom resounded chattering and laughter. Many had taken off their tunics(especially students whose garments were of fine cloth and perfectlynew), and I now did the same, with a consciousness that "IT" was"beginning. " There had been no great festivity as yet, but I feltassured that things would go splendidly when once we had begun drinkingtumblers of the potion that was now in course of preparation. 

At length, the punch was ready, and the Dorpat student, with muchbespattering of the table as he did so, ladled the liquor into tumblers, and cried: "Now, gentlemen, please!" When we had each of us taken asticky tumbler of the stuff into our hands, the Dorpat student and Frostsang a German song in which the word "Hoch!" kept occurring again andagain, while we joined, in haphazard fashion, in the chorus. Next weclinked glasses together, shouted something in praise of punch, crossedhands, and took our first drink of the sweet, strong mixture. After thatthere was no further waiting; the "wine" was in full swing. The firstglassful consumed, a second was poured out. Yet, for all that I began tofeel a throbbing in my temples, and that the flames seemed to be turningpurple, and that every one around me was laughing and shouting, thingsseemed lacking in real gaiety, and I somehow felt that, as a matterof fact, we were all of us finding the affair rather dull, and onlyPRETENDING to be enjoying it. The Dorpat student may have been anexception, for he continued to grow more and more red in the face andmore and more ubiquitous as he filled up empty glasses and stained thetable with fresh spots of the sweet, sticky stuff. The precise sequenceof events I cannot remember, but I can recall feeling strongly attractedtowards Frost and the Dorpat student that evening, learning their Germansong by heart, and kissing them each on their sticky-sweet lips; alsothat that same evening I conceived a violent hatred against the Dorpatstudent, and was for pushing him from his chair, but thought better ofit; also that, besides feeling the same spirit of independence towardsthe rest of the company as I had felt on the night of the matriculationdinner, my head ached and swam so badly that I thought each moment wouldbe my last; also that, for some reason or another, we all of us sat downon the floor and imitated the movements of rowers in a boat as we sangin chorus, "Down our mother stream the Volga;" also that I conceivedthis procedure on our part to be uncalled for; also that, as I layprone upon the floor, I crossed my legs and began wriggling about like atsigane; [Gipsy dancer. ] also that I ricked some one's neck, and came tothe conclusion that I should never have done such a thing if I had notbeen drunk; also that we had some supper and another kind of liquor, andthat I then went to the door to get some fresh air; also that my headseemed suddenly to grow chill, and that I noticed, as I drove away, thatthe scat of the vehicle was so sharply aslant and slippery that for meto retain my position behind Kuzma was impossible; also that he seemedto have turned all flabby, and to be waving about like a dish clout. But what I remember best is that throughout the whole of that eveningI never ceased to feel that I was acting with excessive stupidity inpretending to be enjoying myself, to like drinking a great deal, and tobe in no way drunk, as well as that every one else present was actingwith equal stupidity in pretending those same things. All the time I hada feeling that each one of my companions was finding the festivities asdistasteful as I was myself; but, in the belief that he was the only onedoing so, felt himself bound to pretend that he was very merry, in ordernot to mar the general hilarity. Also, strange to state, I felt thatI ought to keep up this pretence for the sole reason that into apunch-bowl there had been poured three bottles of champagne at nineroubles the bottle and ten bottles of rum at four--making seventyroubles in all, exclusive of the supper. So convinced of my folly didI feel that, when, at next day's lecture, those of my comrades who hadbeen at Baron Z. 's party seemed not only in no way ashamed to rememberwhat they had done, but even talked about it so that other studentsmight hear of their doings, I felt greatly astonished. They all declaredthat it had been a splendid "wine, " that Dorpat students were just thefellows for that kind of thing, and that there had been consumed at itno less than forty bottles of rum among twenty guests, some of whom haddropped senseless under the table! That they should care to talk aboutsuch things seemed strange enough, but that they should care to lieabout them seemed absolutely unintelligible. 

XL. MY FRIENDSHIP WITH THE NECHLUDOFFS

That winter, too, I saw a great deal both of Dimitri who often lookedus up, and of his family, with whom I was beginning to stand on intimateterms. 

The Nechludoffs (that is to say, mother, aunt, and daughter) alwaysspent their evenings at home, at which time the Princess liked young mento visit her--at all events young men of the kind whom she describedas able to spend an evening without playing cards or dancing. Yet suchyoung fellows must have been few and far between, for, although I wentto the Nechludoffs almost every evening, I seldom found other guestspresent. Thus, I came to know the members of this family and theirseveral dispositions well enough to be able to form clear ideas asto their mutual relations, and to be quite at home amid the roomsand furniture of their house. Indeed, so long as no other guests werepresent, I felt entirely at my ease. True, at first I used to feel alittle uncomfortable when left alone in the room with Varenika, forI could not rid myself of the idea that, though far from pretty, shewished me to fall in love with her; but in time this nervousness of minebegan to lessen, since she always looked so natural, and talked to meso exactly as though she were conversing with her brother or LubovSergievna, that I came to look upon her simply as a person to whom itwas in no way dangerous or wrong to show that I took pleasure in hercompany. Throughout the whole of our acquaintance she appeared to memerely a plain, though not positively ugly, girl, concerning whom onewould never ask oneself the question, "Am I, or am I not, in love with her?" Sometimes I would talk to herdirect, but more often I did so through Dimitri or Lubov Sergievna; andit was the latter method which afforded me the most pleasure. I derivedconsiderable gratification from discoursing when she was there, fromhearing her sing, and, in general, from knowing that she was in thesame room as myself; but it was seldom now that any thoughts of what ourfuture relations might ever be, or that any dreams of self-sacrifice formy friend if he should ever fall in love with my sister, came into myhead. If any such ideas or fancies occurred to me, I felt satisfied withthe present, and drove away all thoughts about the future. 

Yet, in spite of this intimacy, I continued to look upon it as mybounden duty to keep the Nechludoffs in general, and Varenika inparticular, in ignorance of my true feelings and tastes, and strovealways to appear altogether another young man than what I really was--toappear, indeed, such a young man as could never possibly have existed. Iaffected to be "soulful" and would go off into raptures and exclamationsand impassioned gestures whenever I wished it to be thought thatanything pleased me, while, on the other hand, I tried always to seemindifferent towards any unusual circumstance which I myself perceived orwhich I had had pointed out to me. I aimed always at figuring both as asarcastic cynic divorced from every sacred tie and as a shrewd observer, as well as at being accounted logical in all my conduct, precise andmethodical in all my ways of life, and at the same time contemptuous ofall materiality. I may safely say that I was far better in reality thanthe strange being into whom I attempted to convert myself; yet, whateverI was or was not, the Nechludoffs were unfailingly kind to me, and (happily for myself) took no notice (as it now appears) of myplay-acting. Only Lubov Sergievna, who, I believe, really believed meto be a great egoist, atheist, and cynic, had no love for me, butfrequently disputed what I said, flew into tempers, and left mepetrified with her disjointed, irrelevant utterances. Yet Dimitri heldalways to the same strange, something more than friendly, relations withher, and used to say not only that she was misunderstood by every one, but that she did him a world of good. This, however, did not prevent therest of his family from finding fault with his infatuation. 

Once, when talking to me about this incomprehensible attachment, Varenika explained the matter thus: "You see, Dimitri is a selfishperson. He is very proud, and, for all his intellect, very fond ofpraise, and of surprising people, and of always being FIRST, whilelittle Auntie" (the general nickname for Lubov Sergievna) "is innocentenough to admire him, and at the same time devoid of the tact toconceal her admiration. Consequently she flatters his vanity--not out ofpretence, but sincerely. "

This dictum I laid to heart, and, when thinking it over afterwards, could not but come to the conclusion that Varenika was very sensible;wherefore I was glad to award her promotion thenceforth in my regard. Yet, though I was always glad enough to assign her any credit whichmight arise from my discovering in her character any signs of good senseor other moral qualities, I did so with strict moderation, and neverran to any extreme pitch of enthusiasm in the process. Thus, when SophiaIvanovna (who was never weary of discussing her niece) related to mehow, four years ago, Varenika had suddenly given away all her clothes tosome peasant children without first asking permission to do so, so thatthe garments had subsequently to be recovered, I did not at once acceptthe fact as entitling Varenika to elevation in my opinion, but wenton giving her good advice about the unpracticalness of such views onproperty. 

When other guests were present at the Nechludoffs (among them, sometimes, Woloda and Dubkoff) I used to withdraw myself to a remoteplane, and, with the complacency and quiet consciousness of strengthof an habitue of the house, listen to what others were saying withoutputting in a remark myself. Yet everything that these others said seemedto me so immeasurably stupid that I used to feel inwardly amazed thatsuch a clever, logical woman as the Princess, with her equally logicalfamily, could listen to and answer such rubbish. Had it, however, entered into my head to compare what, others said with what I myselfsaid when there alone, I should probably have ceased to feel surprise. Still less should I have continued to feel surprise had I notbelieved that the women of our own household--Avdotia, Lubotshka, andKatenka--were superior to the rest of their sex, for in that case Ishould have remembered the kind of things over which Avdotia and Katenkawould laugh and jest with Dubkoff from one end of an evening to theother. I should have remembered that seldom did an evening pass butDubkoff would first have, an argument about something, and then read ina sententious voice either some verses beginning "Au banquet de la vie, infortune convive" or extracts from The Demon. In short, I should haveremembered what nonsense they used to chatter for hours at a time. 

It need hardly be said that, when guests were present, Varenika paidless attention to me than when we were alone, as well as that I wasdeprived of the reading and music which I so greatly loved to hear. Whentalking to guests, she lost, in my eyes, her principal charm--that ofquiet seriousness and simplicity. I remember how strange it used to seemto me to hear her discoursing on theatres and the weather to my brotherWoloda! I knew that of all things in the world he most despised andshunned banality, and that Varenika herself used to make fun of forcedconversations on the weather and similar matters. Why, then, whenmeeting in society, did they both of them talk such intolerablenothings, and, as it were, shame one another? After talks of this kindI used to feel silently resentful against Woloda, as well as next day torally Varenika on her overnight guests. Yet one result of it was thatI derived all the greater pleasure from being one of the Nechludoffs'family circle. Also, for some reason or another I began to prefermeeting Dimitri in his mother's drawing-room to being with him alone. 

XLI. MY FRIENDSHIP WITH THE NECHLUDOFFS

At this period, indeed, my friendship with Dimitri hung by a hair. Ihad been criticising him too long not to have discovered faults in hischaracter, for it is only in first youth that we love passionately andtherefore love only perfect people. As soon as the mists engendered bylove of this kind begin to dissolve, and to be penetrated by the clearbeams of reason, we see the object of our adoration in his true shape, and with all his virtues and failings exposed. Some of those failingsstrike us with the exaggerated force of the unexpected, and combine withthe instinct for novelty and the hope that perfection may yet befound in a fellow-man to induce us not only to feel coldness, buteven aversion, towards the late object of our adoration. Consequently, desiring it no longer, we usually cast it from us, and pass onwardsto seek fresh perfection. For the circumstance that that was not whatoccurred with respect to my own relation to Dimitri, I was indebted tohis stubborn, punctilious, and more critical than impulsive attachmentto myself--a tie which I felt ashamed to break. Moreover, our strangevow of frankness bound us together. We were afraid that, if we parted, we should leave in one another's power all the incriminatory moralsecrets of which we had made mutual confession. At the same time, ourrule of frankness had long ceased to be faithfully observed, but, onthe contrary, proved a frequent cause of constraint, and brought aboutstrange relations between us. 

Almost every time that winter that I went upstairs to Dimitri's room, I used to find there a University friend of his named Bezobiedoff, withwhom he appeared to be very much taken up. Bezobiedoff was a small, slight fellow, with a face pitted over with smallpox, freckled, effeminate hands, and a huge flaxen moustache much in need of the comb. He was invariably dirty, shabby, uncouth, and uninteresting. To me, Dimitri's relations with him were as unintelligible as his relationswith Lubov Sergievna, and the only reason he could have had for choosingsuch a man for his associate was that in the whole University there wasno worse-looking student than Bezobiedoff. Yet that alone would havebeen sufficient to make Dimitri extend him his friendship, and, as amatter of fact, in all his intercourse with this fellow he seemed to besaying proudly: "I care nothing who a man may be. In my eyes every oneis equal. I like him, and therefore he is a desirable acquaintance. "Nevertheless I could not imagine how he could bring himself to do it, nor how the wretched Bezobiedoff ever contrived to maintain his awkwardposition. To me the friendship seemed a most distasteful one. 

One night, I went up to Dimitri's room to try and get him to come downfor an evening's talk in his mother's drawing-room, where we couldalso listen to Varenika's reading and singing, but Bezobiedoff hadforestalled me there, and Dimitri answered me curtly that he could notcome down, since, as I could see for myself, he had a visitor with him. 

"Besides, " he added, "what is the fun of sitting there? We had muchbetter stay HERE and talk. "

I scarcely relished the prospect of spending a couple of hours inBezobiedoff's company, yet could not make up my mind to go downalone; wherefore, cursing my friend's vagaries, I seated myself in arocking-chair, and began rocking myself silently to and fro. Ifelt vexed with them both for depriving me of the pleasures of thedrawing-room, and my only hope as I listened irritably to theirconversation was that Bezobiedoff would soon take his departure. "A niceguest indeed to be sitting with!" I thought to myself when a footmanbrought in tea and Dimitri had five times to beg Bezobiedoff to have acup, for the reason that the bashful guest thought it incumbent upon himalways to refuse it at first and to say, "No, help yourself. " I couldsee that Dimitri had to put some restraint upon himself as he resumedthe conversation. He tried to inveigle me also into it, but I remainedglum and silent. 

"I do not mean to let my face give any one the suspicion that I ambored" was my mental remark to Dimitri as I sat quietly rocking myselfto and fro with measured beat. Yet, as the moments passed, I foundmyself--not without a certain satisfaction--growing more and moreinwardly hostile to my friend. "What a fool he is!" I reflected. "Hemight be spending the evening agreeably with his charming family, yet hegoes on sitting with this brute!--will go on doing so, too, until it istoo late to go down to the drawing-room!" Here I glanced at him overthe back of my chair, and thought the general look of his attitude andappearance so offensive and repellant that at the moment I could gladlyhave offered him some insult, even a most serious one. 

At last Bezobiedoff rose, but Dimitri could not easily let such adelightful friend depart, and asked him to stay the night. Fortunately, Bezobiedoff declined the invitation, and departed. Having seen him off, Dimitri returned, and, smiling a faintly complacent smile as he did so, and rubbing his hands together (in all probability partly because he hadsustained his character for eccentricity, and partly because he had gotrid of a bore), started to pace the room, with an occasional glanceat myself. I felt more offended with him than ever. "How can he goon walking about the room and grinning like that?" was my inwardreflection. 

"What are you so angry about?" he asked me suddenly as he halted infront of my chair. 

"I am not in the least angry, " I replied (as people always do answerunder such circumstances). "I am merely vexed that you should play-actto me, and to Bezobiedoff, and to yourself. "

"What rubbish!" he retorted. "I never play-act to any one. "

"I have in mind our rule of frankness, " I replied, "when I tell you thatI am certain you cannot bear this Bezobiedoff any more than I can. He isan absolute cad, yet for some inexplicable reason or another it pleasesyou to masquerade before him. "

"Not at all! To begin with, he is a splendid fellow, and--"

"But I tell you it IS so. I also tell you that your friendship for LubovSergievna is founded on the same basis, namely, that she thinks you agod. "

"And I tell you once more that it is not so. "

"Oh, I know it for myself, " I retorted with the heat of suppressedanger, and designing to disarm him with my frankness. "I have told youbefore, and I repeat it now, that you always seem to like people who saypleasant things to you, but that, as soon as ever I come to examineyour friendship, I invariably find that there exists no real attachmentbetween you. "

"Oh, but you are wrong, " said Dimitri with an angry straightening of theneck in his collar. "When I like people, neither their praise nor theirblame can make any difference to my opinion of them. "

"Well, dreadful though it may seem to you, I confess that I myself oftenused to hate my father when he abused me, and to wish that he was dead. In the same way, you--"

"Speak for yourself. I am very sorry that you could ever have been so--"

"No, no!" I cried as I leapt from my chair and faced him with thecourage of exasperation. "It is for YOURSELF that you ought to feelsorry--sorry because you never told me a word about this fellow. Youknow that was not honourable of you. Nevertheless, I will tell YOU whatI think of you, " and, burning to wound him even more than he had woundedme, I set out to prove to him that he was incapable of feeling any realaffection for anybody, and that I had the best of grounds (as in verytruth I believed I had) for reproaching him. I took great pleasurein telling him all this, but at the same time forgot that the onlyconceivable purpose of my doing so--to force him to confess to thefaults of which I had accused him--could not possibly be attained at thepresent moment, when he was in a rage. Had he, on the other hand, beenin a condition to argue calmly, I should probably never have said what Idid. 

The dispute was verging upon an open quarrel when Dimitri suddenlybecame silent, and left the room. I pursued him, and continued what Iwas saying, but he did not answer. I knew that his failings included ahasty temper, and that he was now fighting it down; wherefore I cursedhis good resolutions the more in my heart. 

This, then, was what our rule of frankness had brought us to--the rulethat we should "tell one another everything in our minds, and neverdiscuss one another with a third person!" Many a time we had exaggeratedfrankness to the pitch of making mutual confession of the most shamelessthoughts, and of shaming ourselves by voicing to one another proposalsor schemes for attaining our desires; yet those confessions had notonly failed to draw closer the tie which united us, but had dissipatedsympathy and thrust us further apart, until now pride would not allowhim to expose his feelings even in the smallest detail, and we employedin our quarrel the very weapons which we had formerly surrendered to oneanother--the weapons which could strike the shrewdest blows!

XLII. OUR STEPMOTHER

Notwithstanding that Papa had not meant to return to Moscow before theNew Year, he arrived in October, when there was still good riding tohounds to be had in the country. He alleged as his reason for changinghis mind that his suit was shortly to come on before the Senate, butMimi averred that Avdotia had found herself so ennuyee in the country, and had so often talked about Moscow and pretended to be unwell, thatPapa had decided to accede to her wishes. "You see, she never reallyloved him--she and her love only kept buzzing about his ears because shewanted to marry a rich man, " added Mimi with a pensive sigh which said:"To think what a certain other person could have done for him if only hehad valued her!"

Yet that "certain other person" was unjust to Avdotia, seeing thatthe latter's affection for Papa--the passionate, devoted love ofself-abandonment--revealed itself in her every look and word andmovement. At the same time, that love in no way hindered her, not onlyfrom being averse to parting with her adored husband, but also fromdesiring to visit Madame Annette's and order there a lovely cap, a hattrimmed with a magnificent blue ostrich feather, and a blue Venetianvelvet bodice which was to expose to the public gaze the snowy, wellshaped breast and arms which no one had yet gazed upon except herhusband and maids. Of course Katenka sided with her mother and, ingeneral, there became established between Avdotia and ourselves, fromthe day of her arrival, the most extraordinary and burlesque order ofrelations. As soon as she stepped from the carriage, Woloda assumed anair of great seriousness and ceremony, and, advancing towards her withmuch bowing and scraping, said in the tone of one who is presentingsomething for acceptance:

"I have the honour to greet the arrival of our dear Mamma, and to kissher hand. "

"Ah, my dear son!" she replied with her beautiful, unvarying smile. 

"And do not forget the younger son, " I said as I also approached herhand, with an involuntary imitation of Woloda's voice and expression. 

Had our stepmother and ourselves been certain of any mutual affection, that expression might have signified contempt for any outwardmanifestation of our love. Had we been ill-disposed towards one another, it might have denoted irony, or contempt for pretence, or a desire toconceal from Papa (standing by the while) our real relations, as wellas many other thoughts and sentiments. But, as a matter of fact, thatexpression (which well consorted with Avdotia's own spirit) simplysignified nothing at all--simply concealed the absence of any definiterelations between us. In later life I often had occasion to remark, inthe case of other families whose members anticipated among themselvesrelations not altogether harmonious, the sort of provisional, burlesquerelations which they formed for daily use; and it was just suchrelations as those which now became established between ourselves andour stepmother. We scarcely ever strayed beyond them, but were politeto her, conversed with her in French, bowed and scraped before her, andcalled her "chere Maman"--a term to which she always responded in a toneof similar lightness and with her beautiful, unchanging smile. Only thelachrymose Lubotshka, with her goose feet and artless prattle, reallyliked our stepmother, or tried, in her naive and frequently awkward way, to bring her and ourselves together: wherefore the only person in theworld for whom, besides Papa, Avdotia had a spark of affection wasLubotshka. Indeed, Avdotia always treated her with a kind of graveadmiration and timid deference which greatly surprised me. 

From the first Avdotia was very fond of calling herself our stepmotherand hinting that, since children and servants usually adopt an unjustand hostile attitude towards a woman thus situated, her own positionwas likely to prove a difficult one. Yet, though she foresaw all theunpleasantness of her predicament, she did nothing to escape from it by(for instance) conciliating this one, giving presents to that other one, and forbearing to grumble--the last a precaution which it would havebeen easy for her to take, seeing that by nature she was in no wayexacting, as well as very good-tempered. Yet, not only did she do noneof these things, but her expectation of difficulties led her to adoptthe defensive before she had been attacked. That is to say, supposingthat the entire household was designing to show her every kind of insultand annoyance, she would see plots where no plots were, and considerthat her most dignified course was to suffer in silence--an attitudeof passivity as regards winning AFfection which of course led toDISaffection. Moreover, she was so totally lacking in that facultyof "apprehension" to which I have already referred as being highlydeveloped in our household, and all her customs were so utterly opposedto those which had long been rooted in our establishment, that those twofacts alone were bound to go against her. From the first, her mode oflife in our tidy, methodical household was that of a person onlyjust arrived there. Sometimes she went to bed late, sometimes early;sometimes she appeared at luncheon, sometimes she did not; sometimes shetook supper, sometimes she dispensed with it. When we had no guestswith us she more often than not walked about the house in a semi-nudecondition, and was not ashamed to appear before us--even before theservants--in a white chemise, with only a shawl thrown over her bareshoulders. At first this Bohemianism pleased me, but before very longit led to my losing the last shred of respect which I felt for her. Whatstruck me as even more strange was the fact that, according as we had orhad not guests, she was two different women. The one (the woman figuringin society) was a young and healthy, but rather cold, beauty, a personrichly dressed, neither stupid nor clever, and unfailingly cheerful. The other woman (the one in evidence when no guests were present) wasconsiderably past her first youth, languid, depressed, slovenly, andennuyee, though affectionate. Frequently, as I looked at her when, smiling, rosy with the winter air, and happy in the consciousness of herbeauty, she came in from a round of calls and, taking off her hat, wentto look at herself in a mirror; or when, rustling in her rich, decolleteball dress, and at once shy and proud before the servants, she waspassing to her carriage; or when, at one of our small receptions athome, she was sitting dressed in a high silken dress finished with somesort of fine lace about her soft neck, and flashing her unvarying, butlovely, smile around her--as I looked at her at such times I couldnot help wondering what would have been said by persons who had beenravished to behold her thus if they could have seen her as I often sawher, namely, when, waiting in the lonely midnight hours for her husbandto return from his club, she would walk like a shadow from room toroom, with her hair dishevelled and her form clad in a sort ofdressing-jacket. Presently, she would sit down to the piano and, herbrows all puckered with the effort, play over the only waltz that sheknew; after which she would pick up a novel, read a few pages somewherein the middle of it, and throw it aside. Next, repairing in personto the dining-room, so as not to disturb the servants, she would getherself a cucumber and some cold veal, and eat it standing by thewindow-sill--then once more resume her weary, aimless, gloomy wanderingfrom room to room. But what, above all other things, caused estrangementbetween us was that lack of understanding which expressed itself chieflyin the peculiar air of indulgent attention with which she would listenwhen any one was speaking to her concerning matters of which she had noknowledge. It was not her fault that she acquired the unconscious habitof bending her head down and smiling slightly with her lips only whenshe found it necessary to converse on topics which did not interest her(which meant any topic except herself and her husband); yet that smileand that inclination of the head, when incessantly repeated, couldbecome unbearably wearisome. Also, her peculiar gaiety--which alwayssounded as though she were laughing at herself, at you, and at the worldin general--was gauche and anything but infectious, while her sympathywas too evidently forced. Lastly, she knew no reticence with regardto her ceaseless rapturising to all and sundry concerning her love forPapa. Although she only spoke the truth when she said that her wholelife was bound up with him, and although she proved it her life long, we considered such unrestrained, continual insistence upon her affectionfor him bad form, and felt more ashamed for her when she was descantingthus before strangers even than we did when she was perpetrating badblunders in French. Yet, although, as I have said, she loved her husbandmore than anything else in the world, and he too had a great affectionfor her (or at all events he had at first, and when he saw that othersbesides himself admired her beauty), it seemed almost as though shepurposely did everything most likely to displease him--simply to proveto him the strength of her love, her readiness to sacrifice herselffor his sake, and the fact that her one aim in life was to win hisaffection! She was fond of display, and my father too liked to see heras a beauty who excited wonder and admiration; yet she sacrificed herweakness for fine clothes to her love for him, and grew more andmore accustomed to remain at home in a plain grey blouse. Again, Papaconsidered freedom and equality to be indispensable conditions of familylife, and hoped that his favourite Lubotshka and his kind-hearted youngwife would become sincere friends; yet once again Avdotia sacrificedherself by considering it incumbent upon her to pay the "real mistressof the house, " as she called Lubotshka, an amount of deference whichonly shocked and annoyed my father. Likewise, he played cards a greatdeal that winter, and lost considerable sums towards the end of it, wherefore, unwilling, as usual, to let his gambling affairs intrude uponhis family life, he began to preserve complete secrecy concerning hisplay; yet Avdotia, though often ailing, as well as, towards the end ofthe winter, enceinte, considered herself bound always to sit up (in agrey blouse, and with her hair dishevelled) for my father when, at, say, four or five o'clock in the morning, he returned home from theclub ashamed, depleted in pocket, and weary. She would ask himabsent-mindedly whether he had been fortunate in play, and listen withindulgent attention, little nods of her head, and a faint smile upon herface as he told her of his doings at the club and begged her, for aboutthe hundredth time, never to sit up for him again. Yet, though Papa'swinnings or losings (upon which his substance practically depended)in no way interested her, she was always the first to meet him when hereturned home in the small hours of the morning. This she was incitedto do, not only by the strength of her devotion, but by a certain secretjealousy from which she suffered. No one in the world could persuade herthat it was REALLY from his club, and not from a mistress's, that Papacame home so late. She would try to read love secrets in his face, and, discerning none there, would sigh with a sort of enjoyment of her grief, and give herself up once more to the contemplation of her unhappiness. 

As the result of these and many other constant sacrifices which occurredin Papa's relations with his wife during the latter months of thatwinter (a time when he lost much, and was therefore out of spirits), there gradually grew up between the two an intermittent feeling of tacithostility--of restrained aversion to the object of devotion of the kindwhich expresses itself in an unconscious eagerness to show the object inquestion every possible species of petty annoyance. 

XLIII. NEW COMRADES

The winter had passed imperceptibly and the thaw begun when the listof examinations was posted at the University, and I suddenly rememberedthat I had to return answers to questions in eighteen subjects on whichI had heard lectures delivered, but with regard to some of which I hadtaken no notes and made no preparation whatever. It seems strange thatthe question "How am I going to pass?" should never have entered myhead, but the truth is that all that winter I had been in such a stateof haze through the delights of being both grown-up and "comme il faut"that, whenever the question of the examinations had occurred to me, Ihad mentally compared myself with my comrades, and thought to myself, "They are certain to pass, and as most of them are not 'comme il faut, 'and I am therefore their personal superior, I too am bound to come outall right. " In fact, the only reason why I attended lectures at allwas that I might become an habitue of the University, and obtain Papa'sleave to go in and out of the house. Moreover, I had many acquaintancesnow, and often enjoyed myself vastly at the University. I loved theracket, talking, and laughter in the auditorium, the opportunities forsitting on a back bench, and letting the measured voice of the professorlure one into dreams as one contemplated one's comrades, the occasionalrunnings across the way for a snack and a glass of vodka (sweetened bythe fearful joy of knowing that one might be hauled before the professorfor so doing), the stealthy closing of the door as one returned to theauditorium, and the participation in "course versus course" scuffles inthe corridors. All this was very enjoyable. 

By the time, however, that every one had begun to put in a betterattendance at lectures, and the professor of physics had completed hiscourse and taken his leave of us until the examinations came on, and thestudents were busy collecting their notebooks and arranging to do theirpreparation in parties, it struck me that I also had better preparefor the ordeal. Operoff, with whom I still continued on bowing, butotherwise most frigid, terms, suddenly offered not only to lend me hisnotebooks, but to let me do my preparation with himself and some otherstudents. I thanked him, and accepted the invitation--hoping by thatconferment of honour completely to dissipate our old misunderstanding;but at the same time I requested that the gatherings should alwaysbe held at my home, since my quarters were so splendid! To this thestudents replied that they meant to take turn and turn about--sometimesto meet at one fellow's place, sometimes at another's, as might be mostconvenient. 

The first of our reunions was held at Zuchin's, who had a smallpartition-room in a large building on the Trubni Boulevard. The openingnight I arrived late, and entered when the reading aloud had alreadybegun. The little apartment was thick with tobacco-smoke, while on thetable stood a bottle of vodka, a decanter, some bread, some salt, and ashin-bone of mutton. Without rising, Zuchin asked me to have some vodkaand to doff my tunic. 

"I expect you are not accustomed to such entertainment, " he added. 

Every one was wearing a dirty cotton shirt and a dickey. Endeavouringnot to show my contempt for the company, I took off my tunic, and laydown in a sociable manner on the sofa. Zuchin went on reading aloudand correcting himself with the help of notebooks, while the othersoccasionally stopped him to ask a question, which he always answeredwith ability, correctness, and precision. I listened for a time with therest, but, not understanding much of it, since I had not been present atwhat had been read before, soon interpolated a question. 

"Hullo, old fellow! It will be no good for you to listen if you do notknow the subject, " said Zuchin. "I will lend you my notebooks, and thenyou can read it up by to-morrow, and I will explain it to you. "

I felt rather ashamed of my ignorance. Also, I felt the truth of whathe said; so I gave up listening, and amused myself by observing mynew comrades. According to my classification of humanity, into persons"comme il faut" and persons not "comme il faut, " they evidently belongedto the latter category, and so aroused in me not only a feeling ofcontempt, but also a certain sensation of personal hostility, for thereason that, though not "comme il faut, " they accounted me their equal, and actually patronised me in a sort of good-humoured fashion. What inparticular excited in me this feeling was their feet, their dirty nailsand fingers, a particularly long talon on Operoff's obtrusivelittle finger, their red shirts, their dickeys, the chaff which theygood-naturedly threw at one another, the dirty room, a habit whichZuchin had of continually snuffling and pressing a finger to his nose, and, above all, their manner of speaking--that is to say, their use andintonation of words. For instance, they said "flat" for fool, "just theticket" for exactly, "grandly" for splendidly, and so on--all of whichseemed to me either bookish or disagreeably vulgar. Still more was my"comme il faut" refinement disturbed by the accents which they put uponcertain Russian--and, still more, upon foreign--words. Thus they saiddieYATelnost for DIEyatelnost, NARochno for naROChno, v'KAMinie forv'kaMINie, SHAKespeare for ShakesPEARe, and so forth. 

Yet, for all their insuperably repellent exterior, I could detectsomething good in these fellows, and envied them the cheerfulgood-fellowship which united them in one. Consequently, I began to feelattracted towards them, and made up my mind that, come what might, Iwould become of their number. The kind and honourable Operoff I knewalready, and now the brusque, but exceptionally clever, Zuchin (whoevidently took the lead in this circle) began to please me greatly. He was a dark, thick-set little fellow, with a perennially glistening, polished face, but one that was extremely lively, intellectual, andindependent in its expression. That expression it derived from a low, but prominent, forehead, deep black eyes, short, bristly hair, and athick, dark beard which looked as though it stood in constant need oftrimming. Although, too, he seemed to think nothing of himself (a trailwhich always pleased me in people), it was clear that he never let hisbrain rest. He had one of those expressive faces which, a few hoursafter you have seen them for the first time, change suddenly andentirely to your view. Such a change took place, in my eyes, with regardto Zuchin's face towards the end of that evening. Suddenly, I seemedto see new wrinkles appear upon its surface, its eyes grow deeper, itssmile become a different one, and the whole face assume such an alteredaspect that I scarcely recognised it. 

When the reading was ended, Zuchin, the other students, and myselfmanifested our desire to be "comrades all" by drinking vodka untillittle remained in the bottle. Thereupon Zuchin asked if any one had aquarter-rouble to spare, so that he could send the old woman who lookedafter him to buy some more; yet, on my offering to provide the money, he made as though he had not heard me, and turned to Operoff, who pulledout a purse sewn with bugles, and handed him the sum required. 

"And mind you don't get drunk, " added the giver, who himself had notpartaken of the vodka. 

"By heavens!" answered Zuchin as he sucked the marrow out of a muttonbone (I remember thinking that it must be because he ate marrow that hewas so clever). "By heavens!" he went on with a slight smile (and hissmile was of the kind that one involuntarily noticed, and somehow feltgrateful for), "even if I did get drunk, there would be no great harmdone. I wonder which of us two could look after himself the better--youor I? Anyway I am willing to make the experiment, " and he slapped hisforehead with mock boastfulness. "But what a pity it is that Semenoffhas disappeared! He has gone and completely hidden himself somewhere. "

Sure enough, the grey-haired Semenoff who had comforted me so much atmy first examination by being worse dressed than myself, and who, afterpassing the second examination, had attended his lectures regularlyduring the first month, had disappeared thereafter from view, and neverbeen seen at the University throughout the latter part of the course. 

"Where is he?" asked some one. 

"I do not know" replied Zuchin. "He has escaped my eye altogether. Yetwhat fun I used to have with him! What fire there was in the man! andwhat an intellect! I should be indeed sorry if he has come to grief--andcome to grief he probably has, for he was no mere boy to take hisUniversity course in instalments. "

After a little further conversation, and agreeing to meet again the nextnight at Zuchin's, since his abode was the most central point forus all, we began to disperse. As, one by one, we left the room, myconscience started pricking me because every one seemed to be going homeon foot, whereas I had my drozhki. Accordingly, with some hesitationI offered Operoff a lift. Zuchin came to the door with us, and, afterborrowing a rouble of Operoff, went off to make a night of it with somefriends. As we drove along, Operoff told me a good deal about Zuchin'scharacter and mode of life, and on reaching home it was long before Icould get to sleep for thinking of the new acquaintances I had made. Formany an hour, as I lay awake, I kept wavering between the respect whichtheir knowledge, simplicity, and sense of honour, as well as the poetryof their youth and courage, excited in my regard, and the distaste whichI felt for their outward man. In spite of my desire to do so, it was atthat time literally impossible for me to associate with them, sinceour ideas were too wholly at variance. For me, life's meaning and charmcontained an infinitude of shades of which they had not an inkling, and vice versa. The greatest obstacles of all, however, to our betteracquaintance I felt to be the twenty roubles' worth of cloth in mytunic, my drozhki, and my white linen shirt; and they appeared tome most important obstacles, since they made me feel as though I hadunwittingly insulted these comrades by displaying such tokens of mywealth. I felt guilty in their eyes, and as though, whether I acceptedor rejected their acquittal and took a line of my own, I could neverenter into equal and unaffected relations with them. Yet to such anextent did the stirring poetry of the courage which I could detect inZuchin (in particular) overshadow the coarse, vicious side of his naturethat the latter made no unpleasant impression upon me. 

For a couple of weeks I visited Zuchin's almost every night for purposesof work. Yet I did very little there, since, as I have said, I had lostground at the start, and, not having sufficient grit in me to catch upmy companions by solitary study, was forced merely to PRETEND that I waslistening to and taking in all they were reading. I have an idea, too, that they divined my pretence, since I often noticed that they passedover points which they themselves knew without first inquiring of mewhether I did the same. Yet, day by day, I was coming to regard thevulgarity of this circle with more indulgence, to feel increasinglydrawn towards its way of life, and to find in it much that was poetical. Only my word of honour to Dimitri that I would never indulge indissipation with these new comrades kept me from deciding also to sharetheir diversions. 

Once, I thought I would make a display of my knowledge of literature, particularly French literature, and so led the conversation to thattheme. Judge, then, of my surprise when I discovered that not only hadmy companions been reading the foreign passages in Russian, but thatthey had studied far more foreign works than I had, and knew and couldappraise English, and even Spanish, writers of whom I had never somuch as heard! Likewise, Pushkin and Zhukovski represented to themLITERATURE, and not, as to myself, certain books in yellow covers whichI had once read and studied when a child. For Dumas and Sue they hadan almost equal contempt, and, in general, were competent to form muchbetter and clearer judgments on literary matters than I was, for allthat I refused to recognise the fact. In knowledge of music, too, Icould not beat them, and was astonished to find that Operoff played theviolin, and another student the cello and piano, while both of them weremembers of the University orchestra, and possessed a wide knowledgeof and appreciation of good music. In short, with the exception of theFrench and German languages, my companions were better posted at everypoint than I was, yet not the least proud of the fact. True, I mighthave plumed myself on my position as a man of the world, but Wolodaexcelled me even in that. Wherein, then, lay the height from which Ipresumed to look down upon these comrades? In my acquaintanceship withPrince Ivan Ivanovitch? In my ability to speak French? In my drozhki?In my linen shirt? In my finger-nails? "Surely these things are allrubbish, " was the thought which would come flitting through my headunder the influence of the envy which the good-fellowship and kindly, youthful gaiety displayed around me excited in my breast. Every oneaddressed his interlocutor in the second person singular. True, thefamiliarity of this address almost approximated to rudeness, yeteven the boorish exterior of the speaker could not conceal a constantendeavour never to hurt another one's feelings. The terms "brute" or"swine, " when used in this good-natured fashion, only convulsed me, andgave me cause for inward merriment. In no way did they offend the personaddressed, or prevent the company at large from remaining on the mostsincere and friendly footing. In all their intercourse these youths weredelicate and forbearing in a way that only very poor and very young mencan be. However much I might detect in Zuchin's character and amusementsan element of coarseness and profligacy, I could also detect the factthat his drinking-bouts were of a very different order to the puerilitywith burnt rum and champagne in which I had participated at Baron Z. 's. 

XLIV. ZUCHIN AND SEMENOFF

Although I do not know what class of society Zuchin belonged to, Iknow that, without the help either of means or social position, hehad matriculated from the Seventh Gymnasium. At that time he waseighteen--though he looked much older--and very clever, especially inhis powers of assimilation. To him it was easier to survey the whole ofsome complicated subject, to foresee its various parts and deductions, than to use that knowledge, when gained, for reasoning out the exactlaws to which those deductions were due. He knew that he was clever, and of the fact he was proud; yet from that very pride arose thecircumstance that he treated every one with unvarying simplicityand good-nature. Moreover, his experience of life must have beenconsiderable, for already he had squandered much love, friendship, activity, and money. Though poor and moving only in the lower ranks ofsociety, there was nothing which he had ever attempted for which hedid not thenceforth feel the contempt, the indifference, or the utterdisregard which were bound to result from his attaining his goal tooeasily. In fact, the very ardour with which he applied himself to anew pursuit seemed to be due to his contempt for what he had alreadyattained, since his abilities always led him to success, and thereforeto a certain right to despise it. With the sciences it was thesame. Though little interested in them, and taking no notes, he knewmathematics thoroughly, and was uttering no vain boast when he saidthat he could beat the professor himself. Much of what he heard saidin lectures he thought rubbish, yet with his peculiar habit ofunconsciously practical roguishness he feigned to subscribe to all thatthe professors thought important, and every professor adored him. True, he was outspoken to the authorities, but they none the less respectedhim. Besides disliking and despising the sciences, he despised all wholaboured to attain what he himself had mastered so easily, since thesciences, as he understood them, did not occupy one-tenth part of hispowers. In fact, life, as he saw it from the student's standpoint, contained nothing to which he could devote himself wholly, and hisimpetuous, active nature (as he himself often said) demanded lifecomplete: wherefore he frequented the drinking-bout in so far as hecould afford it, and surrendered himself to dissipation chiefly out ofa desire to get as far away from himself as possible. Consequently, just as the examinations were approaching, Operoff's prophecy to me cametrue, for Zuchin wasted two whole weeks in this fashion, and we had todo the latter part of our preparation at another student's. Yet at thefirst examination he reappeared with pale, haggard face and tremuloushands, and passed brilliantly into the second course!

The company of roisterers of which Zuchin had been the leader sinceits formation at the beginning of the term consisted of eight students, among whom, at first, had been numbered Ikonin and Semenoff; but theformer had left under the strain of the continuous revelry in which theband had indulged in the early part of the term, and the latter secededlater for reasons which were never wholly explained. In its earlydays this band had been looked upon with awe by all the fellows of ourcourse, and had had its exploits much discussed. Of these exploitsthe leading heroes had been Zuchin and, towards the end of the term, Semenoff, but the latter had come to be generally shunned, and to causedisturbances on the rare occasions when he attended a lecture. Justbefore the examinations began, he rounded off his drinking exploits in amost energetic and original fashion, as I myself had occasion to witness(through my acquaintanceship with Zuchin). This is how it was. Oneevening we had just assembled at Zuchin's, and Operoff, reinforcing acandlestick with a candle stuck in a bottle, had just plunged his noseinto his notebooks and begun to read aloud in his thin voice from hisneatly-written notes on physics, when the landlady entered the room, and informed Zuchin that some one had brought a note for him... [Theremainder of this chapter is omitted in the original. ]

XLV. I COME TO GRIEF

At length the first examination--on differentials and integrals--drewnear, but I continued in a vague state which precluded me from formingany clear idea of what was awaiting me. Every evening, after consortingwith Zuchin and the rest, the thought would occur to me that there wassomething in my convictions which I must change--something wrong andmistaken; yet every morning the daylight would find me again satisfiedto be "comme il faut, " and desirous of no change whatsoever. 

Such was the frame of mind in which I attended for the firstexamination. I seated myself on the bench where the princes, counts, and barons always sat, and began talking to them in French, with the notunnatural result that I never gave another thought to the answerswhich I was shortly to return to questions in a subject of which Iknew nothing. I gazed supinely at other students as they went up to beexamined, and even allowed myself to chaff some of them. 

"Well, Grap, " I said to Ilinka (who, from our first entry into theUniversity, had shaken off my influence, had ceased to smile when Ispoke to him, and always remained ill-disposed towards me), "have yousurvived the ordeal?"

"Yes, " retorted Ilinka. "Let us see if YOU can do so. "

I smiled contemptuously at the answer, notwithstanding that the doubtwhich he had expressed had given me a momentary shock. Once again, however, indifference overlaid that feeling, and I remained so entirelyabsent-minded and supine that, the very moment after I had been examined(a mere formality for me, as it turned out) I was making a dinnerappointment with Baron Z. When called out with Ikonin, I smoothedthe creases in my uniform, and walked up to the examiner's table withperfect sang froid. 

True, a slight shiver of apprehension ran down my back when the youngprofessor--the same one as had examined me for my matriculation--lookedme straight in the face as I reached across to the envelope containingthe tickets. Ikonin, though taking a ticket with the same plunge of hiswhole body as he had done at the previous examinations, did at leastreturn some sort of an answer this time, though a poor one. I, on thecontrary, did just as he had done on the two previous occasions, or evenworse, since I took a second ticket, yet for a second time returned noanswer. The professor looked me compassionately in the face, and said ina quiet, but determined, voice:

"You will not pass into the second course, Monsieur Irtenieff. You hadbetter not complete the examinations. The faculty must be weeded out. The same with you, Monsieur Ikonin. "

Ikonin implored leave to finish the examinations, as a great favour, butthe professor replied that he (Ikonin) was not likely to do in two dayswhat he had not succeeded in doing in a year, and that he had not thesmallest chance of passing. Ikonin renewed his humble, piteous appeals, but the professor was inexorable. 

"You can go, gentlemen, " he remarked in the same quiet, resolute voice. 

I was only too glad to do so, for I felt ashamed of seeming, by mysilent presence, to be joining in Ikonin's humiliating prayers forgrace. I have no recollection of how I threaded my way through thestudents in the hall, nor of what I replied to their questions, norof how I passed into the vestibule and departed home. I was offended, humiliated, and genuinely unhappy. 

For three days I never left my room, and saw no one, but found reliefin copious tears. I should have sought a pistol to shoot myself if I hadhad the necessary determination for the deed. I thought that Ilinka Grapwould spit in my face when he next met me, and that he would have theright to do so; that Operoff would rejoice at my misfortune, and tellevery one of it; that Kolpikoff had justly shamed me that night at therestaurant; that my stupid speeches to Princess Kornikoff had had theirfitting result; and so on, and so on. All the moments in my life whichhad been for me most difficult and painful recurred to my mind. I triedto blame some one for my calamity, and thought that some one must havedone it on purpose--must have conspired a whole intrigue against me. Next, I murmured against the professors, against my comrades, Woloda, Dimitri, and Papa (the last for having sent me to the University atall). Finally, I railed at Providence for ever having let me see suchignominy. Believing myself ruined for ever in the eyes of all who knewme, I besought Papa to let me go into the hussars or to the Caucasus. Naturally, Papa was anything but pleased at what had happened; yet, onseeing my passionate grief, he comforted me by saying that, though itwas a bad business, it might yet be mended by my transferring to anotherfaculty. Woloda, who also saw nothing very terrible in my misfortune, added that at least I should not be put out of countenance in a newfaculty, since I should have new comrades there. As for the ladies ofthe household, they neither knew nor cared what either an examination ora plucking meant, and condoled with me only because they saw me insuch distress. Dimitri came to see me every day, and was very kind andconsolatory throughout; but for that very reason he seemed to me tohave grown colder than before. It always hurt me and made me feeluncomfortable when he came up to my room and seated himself in silencebeside me, much as a doctor might scat himself by the bedside of anawkward patient. Sophia Ivanovna and Varenika sent me books for which Ihad expressed a wish, as also an invitation to go and see them, butin that very thoughtfulness of theirs I saw only proud, humiliatingcondescension to one who had fallen beyond forgiveness. Although, inthree days' time, I grew calmer, it was not until we departed for thecountry that I left the house, but spent the time in nursing my griefand wandering, fearful of all the household, through the various rooms. 

One evening, as I was sitting deep in thought and listening to Avdotiaplaying her waltz, I suddenly leapt to my feet, ran upstairs, got outthe copy-book whereon I had once inscribed "Rules of My Life, " openedit, and experienced my first moment of repentance and moral resolution. True, I burst into tears once more, but they were no longer tears ofdespair. Pulling myself together, I set about writing out a fresh setof rules, in the assured conviction that never again would I do a wrongaction, waste a single moment on frivolity, or alter the rules which Inow decided to frame. 

How long that moral impulse lasted, what it consisted of, and what newprinciples I devised for my moral growth I will relate when speaking ofthe ensuing and happier portion of my early manhood.