‘But that’s neither here nor there,’ Burkin said.
‘When his wife died,’ Ivan continued, after a pause for thought, ‘my brother started looking for an estate. Of course, you can look around for five years and still make the wrong choice and you finish up with something you never even dreamt of. So brother Nikolay bought about three hundred acres, with manor house, servants’ quarters and a park, on a mortgage through an estate agent. But there wasn’t any orchard, gooseberries or duck pond. There was a river, but the water was always the colour of coffee because of the brickworks on one side of the estate and a bone-ash factory on the other. But my dear Nikolay didn’t seem to care. He ordered twenty gooseberry bushes, planted them out and settled down to a landowner’s life.
‘Last year I visited him, as I wanted to see what was going on. In his letter my brother had called his estate “Chumbaroklov Patch” or “Gimalaysky’s”. One afternoon I turned up at “Gimalaysky’s”. It was a hot day. Everywhere there were ditches, fences, hedges, rows of small fir trees and there seemed no way into the yard or anywhere to leave my horse. I went up to the house, only to be welcomed by a fat ginger dog that looked rather like a pig. It wanted to bark, but it was too lazy. Then a barefooted, plump cook – she resembled a pig as well – came out of the kitchen and told me the master was having his after-lunch nap. So I went to my brother’s room and there he was sitting up in bed with a blanket over his knees. He’d aged, put on weight and looked very flabby. His cheeks, nose and lips stuck out and I thought any moment he was going to grunt into his blanket, like a pig.
‘We embraced and wept for joy, and at the sad thought that once we were young and now both of us were grey, and that our lives were nearly over. He got dressed and led me on a tour of the estate.
‘“Well, how’s it going?” I asked.
‘“All right, thank God. It’s a good life.”
‘No longer was he the poor, timid little clerk of before, but a real squire, a gentleman. He felt quite at home, being used to country life by then and he was enjoying himself. He ate a great deal, took proper baths, and he was putting on weight. Already he was suing the district council and both factories, and he got very peeved when the villagers didn’t call him “sir”. He paid great attention to his spiritual wellbeing (as a gentleman should) and he couldn’t dispense charity nice and quietly, but had to make a great show of it. And what did it all add up to? He doled out bicarbonate of soda or castor oil to his villagers – regardless of what they were suffering from – and on his name-day held a thanksgiving service in the village, supplying vodka in plenty, as he thought this was the right thing to do. Oh, those horrid pints of vodka! Nowadays your fat squire drags his villagers off to court for letting their cattle stray on his land and the very next day (if it’s a high holiday) stands them all a few pints of vodka. They’ll drink it, shout hurray and fall at his feet in a drunken stupor. Better standards of living, plenty to eat, idleness – all this makes us Russians terribly smug. Back in his office, Nikolay had been too scared even to voice any opinions of his own, but now he was expounding the eternal verities in true ministerial style: “Education is essential, but premature as far as the common people are concerned” or “Corporal punishment, generally speaking, is harmful, but in certain cases it can be useful and irreplaceable”. And he’d say, “I know the working classes and how to handle them. They like me, I only have to lift my little finger and they’ll do anything for me.”
‘And he said all this, mark you, with a clever, good-natured smile. Time after time he’d say “we gentlemen” or “speaking as one of the gentry”. He’d evidently forgotten that our grandfather had been a peasant and our father a common soldier. Even our absolutely ridiculous surname, Chimsha-Gimalaysky, was melodious, distinguished and highly agreeable to his ears now.
‘But it’s myself I’m concerned with, not him. I’d like to tell you about the change that came over me during the few hours I spent on his estate. Later, when we were having tea, his cook brought us a plateful of gooseberries. They weren’t shop gooseberries, but home-grown, the first fruits of the bushes he’d planted. Nikolay laughed and stared at them for a whole minute, with tears in his eyes. He was too deeply moved for words. Then he popped one in his mouth, looked at me like an enraptured child that has finally been given a long-awaited toy and said, “Absolutely delicious!” He ate some greedily and kept repeating, “So tasty, you must try one!”
‘They were hard and sour, but as Pushkin says: “Uplifting illusion is dearer to us than a host of truths.”2 This was a happy man whose cherished dreams had clearly come true, who had achieved his life’s purpose, had got what he wanted and was happy with his lot – and himself. My thoughts about human happiness, for some peculiar reason, had always been tinged with a certain sadness. But now, seeing this happy man, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of despondency that was close to utter despair. I felt particularly low that night. They made up a bed for me in the room next to my brother’s. He was wide awake and I could hear him getting up, going over to the plate and helping himself to one gooseberry at a time. And I thought how many satisfied, happy people really do exist in this world! And what a powerful force they are! Just take a look at this life of ours and you will see the arrogance and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak. Everywhere there’s unspeakable poverty, overcrowding, degeneracy, drunkenness, hypocrisy and stupid lies… And yet peace and quiet reign in every house and street. Out of fifty thousand people you won’t find one who is prepared to shout out loud and make a strong protest. We see people buying food in the market, eating during the day, sleeping at night-time, talking nonsense, marrying, growing old and then contentedly carting their dead off to the cemetery. But we don’t hear or see those who suffer: the real tragedies of life are enacted somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is calm and peaceful and the only protest comes from statistics – and they can’t talk. Figures show that so many went mad, so many bottles of vodka were emptied, so many children died from malnutrition. And clearly this kind of system is what people need. It’s obvious that the happy man feels contented only because the unhappy ones bear their burden without saying a word: if it weren’t for their silence, happiness would be quite impossible. It’s a kind of mass hypnosis. Someone ought to stand with a hammer at the door of every happy contented man, continually banging on it to remind him that there are unhappy people around and that however happy he may be at the time, sooner or later life will show him its claws and disaster will overtake him in the form of illness, poverty, bereavement and there will be no one to hear or see him. But there isn’t anyone holding a hammer, so our happy man goes his own sweet way and is only gently ruffled by life’s trivial cares, as an aspen is ruffled by the breeze. All’s well as far as he’s concerned.
‘That night I realized that I too was happy and contented,’ Ivan Ivanych went on, getting to his feet. ‘I too had lectured people over dinner – or out hunting – on how to live, on what to believe, on how to handle the common people. And I too had told them that knowledge is a shining lamp, that education is essential, and that plain reading and writing is good enough for the masses, for the moment. Freedom is a blessing, I told them, and we need it like the air we breathe, but we must wait for it patiently.’
Ivan Ivanych turned to Burkin and said angrily, ‘Yes, that’s what I used to say and now I’d like to know what is it we’re waiting for? I’m asking you, what? What is it we’re trying to prove? I’m told that nothing can be achieved in five minutes, that it takes time for any kind of idea to be realized; it’s a gradual process. But who says so? And what is there to prove he’s right? You refer to the natural order of things, to the law of cause and effect. But is there any law or order in a state of affairs where a lively, thinking person like myself should have to stand by a ditch and wait until it’s choked with weeds, or silted up, when I could quite easily, perhaps, leap across it or bridge it? I ask you again, what are we waiting for? Until we have no more str
ength to live, although we long to and need to go on living?
‘I left my brother early next morning and ever since then I’ve found town life unbearable. I’m depressed by peace and quiet, I’m scared of peering through windows, nothing makes me more dejected than the sight of a happy family sitting round the table drinking tea. But I’m old now, no longer fit for the fray, I’m even incapable of hating. I only feel sick at heart, irritable and exasperated. At night my head seems to be on fire with so many thoughts crowding in and I can’t get any sleep… Oh, if only I were young again!’
Ivan Ivanych paced the room excitedly, repeating, ‘If only I were young again!’
Suddenly he went up to Alyokhin and squeezed one hand, then the other. ‘Pavel Konstantinych,’ he pleaded, ‘don’t go to sleep or be lulled into complacency! While you’re still young, strong and healthy, never stop doing good! Happiness doesn’t exist, we don’t need any such thing. If life has any meaning or purpose, you won’t find it in happiness, but in something more rational, in something greater. Doing good!’
Ivan Ivanych said all this with a pitiful, imploring smile, as though pleading for himself.
Afterwards all three of them sat in armchairs in different parts of the room and said nothing. Ivan Ivanych’s story satisfied neither Burkin nor Alyokhin. It was boring listening to that story about some poor devil of a clerk who ate gooseberries, while those generals and ladies, who seemed to have come to life in the gathering gloom, peered out of their gilt frames. For some reason they would have preferred discussing and hearing about refined people, about ladies. The fact that they were all sitting in a drawing-room where everything – the draped chandeliers, the armchairs, the carpets underfoot – indicated that those same people who were now looking out of their frames had once walked around, sat down and drunk their tea there… and with beautiful Pelageya moving about here without a sound – all this was better than any story.
Alyokhin was dying to get to bed. That morning he had been up and about very early (before three) working on the farm, and he could hardly keep his eyes open. However, he was frightened he might miss some interesting story if he left now, so he stayed. He didn’t even try to fathom if everything that Ivan Ivanych had just been saying was clever, or even true: he was only too glad that his guests did not discuss oats or hay or tar, but things that had nothing to do with his way of life, and he wanted them to continue…
‘But it’s time we got some sleep,’ Burkin said, standing up. ‘May I wish you all a very good night!’
Alyokhin bade them good night and went down to his room, while his guests stayed upstairs. They had been given the large room with two old, elaborately carved beds and an ivory crucifix in one corner. These wide, cool beds had been made by the beautiful Pelageya and the linen had a pleasant fresh smell.
Ivan Ivanych undressed without a word and got into bed. Then he muttered, ‘Lord have mercy on us sinners!’ and pulled the blankets over his head. His pipe, which was lying on a table, smelt strongly of stale tobacco and Burkin was so puzzled as to where the terrible smell was coming from that it was a long time before he fell asleep.
All night long the rain beat against the windows.
About Love
Next day they had delicious pies, crayfish and mutton chops for lunch, and during the meal Nikanor, the cook, came upstairs to inquire what the guests would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, puffy-faced and with small eyes. He was so close-shaven his whiskers seemed to have been plucked out and not cut off with a razor.
Alyokhin told his guests that the beautiful Pelageya was in love with the cook. However, since he was a drunkard and a brawler, she didn’t want to marry him; but she did not object to ‘living’ with him, as they say. He was a very devout Christian, however, and his religious convictions would not allow him to ‘set up house’ with her. So he insisted on marriage and would not hear of anything else. He cursed her when he was drunk and even beat her. When he was like this, she would hide upstairs and sob, and then Alyokhin and his servants would not leave the house in case she needed protecting. They began to talk about love.
Alyokhin started: ‘What makes people fall in love and why couldn’t Pelageya fall for someone else, someone more suited to her mentally and physically, instead of that ugly-mug Nikanor (everyone round here calls him ugly-mug), since personal happiness is so important in love? It’s a mystery, and you can interpret it which way you like. Only one indisputable truth has been said about love up to now, that it’s a “tremendous mystery”, and everything else that’s been written or said about it has never provided an answer and is just a reformulation of problems that have always remained unsolved. One theory that might, on the face of it, explain one case, won’t explain a dozen others. Therefore, in my opinion, the best way is to treat each case individually, without making generalizations. In doctors’ jargon, you have to “isolate” each case.’
‘Absolutely true,’ Burkin said.
‘Decent Russians like ourselves have a passion for problems that have never been solved. Usually, love is poeticized, beautified with roses and nightingales, but we Russians have to flavour it with the “eternal problems” – and we choose the most boring ones at that.
‘When I was still studying in Moscow I had a “friend”, a dear lady who’d be wondering how much I’d allow her every month and how much a pound of beef was while I held her close. And we never stop asking ourselves questions when we love: is it honourable or dishonourable, clever or stupid, how will it all end, and so on. Whether that’s a good thing or not, I don’t know, but I do know that it cramps your style, doesn’t provide any satisfaction and gets on your nerves.’
It looked as if he wanted to tell us a story. It’s always the same with people living on their own – they have something that they are only too pleased to get off their chests. Bachelors living in town go to the public baths and restaurants just to talk to someone, and sometimes they tell the bath attendants or waiters some very interesting stories. Out in the country they normally pour out their hearts to their guests. Through the windows we could only see grey skies now and trees dripping with rain – in this kind of weather there was really nowhere to go and nothing else to do except listen to stories.
‘I’ve been living and farming in Sofino for quite a long time now – since I left university, in fact,’ Alyokhin began. ‘I was never brought up to do physical work and I’m an “armchair” type by inclination. When I first came to this estate they were up to their eyes in debts. But since my father had run up these debts partly through spending so much on my education, I decided to stay and work on the estate until the debts were paid off. That was my decision and I started working here – not without a certain degree of aversion, I must confess. The soil’s not very fertile round here, and to avoid farming at a loss you have to rely on serfs or hire farm labourers, which more or less comes to the same thing. Or else you have to run your own estate peasant-style, which means you yourself and all your family have to slave away in the fields. There’s no two ways about it. But then I didn’t have time for subtleties: I didn’t leave a square inch of soil unturned, I rounded up all the peasants and their wives from neighbouring villages and we all worked like mad. I did the ploughing, sowing and reaping myself, which was a terrible bore and it made me screw my face up in disgust, like the starving village cat forced to eat cucumbers in some kitchen garden. I was all aches and pains and I’d fall asleep standing up. From the very beginning I thought that I’d have no trouble at all combining this life of slavery with my cultural activities. All I had to do, so I thought, was keep to some settled routine. So I installed myself in the best rooms up here, had coffee and liqueurs after lunch and dinner, and took the European Herald1 with me to bed. But our parish priest, Father Ivan, turned up and polished off all my liqueurs at one sitting. And the European Herald ended up with his daughters, since during the summer, especially when we were harvesting, I never made it to my own bed but had to sleep in a barn, on a sledg
e, or in a woodman’s hut somewhere, so what time was there for reading? Gradually I moved downstairs, had meals with the servants – they were all that was left of my earlier life of luxury – the same servants who had waited on my father and whom I did not have the heart to dismiss.
‘In my early years here I was made honorary justice of the peace. This meant occasional trips into town, taking my seat at the sessions and local assizes, and this made a break for me. When you’re stuck in a place like this for two or three months at a stretch – especially in the winter – you end up pining for your black frock-coat. I saw frock-coats – and uniforms and tailcoats as well – at the assizes. They were all lawyers, educated men there, people I could talk to. After sleeping on a sledge or eating with the servants it was the height of luxury sitting in an armchair, with clean underwear, light boots, and a watch-chain on your chest!
‘They gave me a warm welcome in town and I eagerly made friends. The most significant, and frankly, the most pleasant, of these friendships was with Luganovich, vice-president of the assizes. Both of you know him, he’s a most delightful man. Now, all this was about the time of that famous arson case. The questioning went on for two days and we were exhausted. Luganovich took a look at me and said, “Do you know what? Come and have dinner at my place.”
‘This was right out of the blue, as I didn’t know him at all well, only through official business, and I’d never been to his house. I went to my hotel room for a quick change and went off to dinner. Now I had the chance to meet Luganovich’s wife, Anna Alekseyevna. She was still very young then, not more than twenty-two, and her first child had been born six months before. It’s all finished now and it’s hard for me to say exactly what it was I found so unusual about her, what attracted me so much, but at the time, over dinner, it was all so clear, without a shadow of doubt: here was a young, beautiful, kind, intelligent, enchanting woman, unlike any I’d met before. Immediately I sensed that she was a kindred spirit, someone I knew already, and that her face, with its warm clever eyes, was just like one I had seen before when I was a little boy, in an album lying on my mother’s chest of drawers.