That night it was clear to me that I too was contented, complacent,” Ivan Ivanych continued, standing up. “After dinner or out hunting, I too have sermonized about how to live, what to believe in, how to govern the nation. I too have declared what’s to be taught to the world, how education is necessary, but for the simple people it is enough to read and write. Freedom is a blessing, I’ve said, without it there is nothing, it’s like being without air, but for now it’s necessary to wait. Yes, I’ve said that, and now I’m asking, Wait in whose name?” As Ivan Ivanych spoke he looked angrily at Burkin. “Wait in whose name? I ask you that. And for what reason? They say to me, Not all at once, every idea comes to fruition gradually, in its own time. But who says this? Where are the proofs that this is just? You refer to the natural order of things, to the laws of phenomena, but is there order and law in this, that I stand aside and wait, a living, thinking man, stand above a ditch and wait while it is collapsing or sinking into the silt at a moment when I could leap across it or build a bridge over it? I say yet again, Wait in whose name? To wait when there is no strength to live, but nevertheless a duty to live and a will to live.
I left my brother early in the morning, and since then it’s become unbearable to be in the city. The peace and tranquility oppress me. I’m afraid to look into a window since there is no sight more painful to me now than a happy family sitting around a table and drinking tea. I’m already old and unfit for the struggle, I’m not even capable of hate. Only I grieve, I’m vexed and sore, in the night my head’s on fire with the rush of thoughts, and I can’t sleep . . . Oh if only I were young.”
In his agitation, Ivan Ivanych propelled himself from one corner to another and repeated, “If only I were young.”
He suddenly went up to Alyokhin and began to shake first his one hand then the other.
“Pavel Konstantinovich,” he went on in an entreating voice, “don’t settle down, don’t let yourself be lulled to sleep. While you’re young and powerful and brisk, don’t weary in doing good. Happiness is nothing, inessential; if there is a reason, a purpose to life, that reason and purpose is not to aim at happiness, but something higher and wiser. Do good.”
All this Ivan Ivanych spoke with a pitiable, beseeching smile, as if he was begging a favour for himself.
Then all three sat in their armchairs, in different corners of the sitting room and were silent. Ivan Ivanych’s story didn’t satisfy either Burkin or Alyokhin. As the generals and ladies watched from the gold frames, seeming to be alive in the twilight, listening to a story about a poor devil of a clerk who ate gooseberries was boring. They would have liked some sort of conversation about people of refinement, about women. And the fact that they were sitting in a drawing room where everything – chandeliers in slipcovers, armchairs, carpets under foot – spoke of how at one time those very same people who watched from the frames had walked here, sat, taken tea where now the beautiful Pelageya moved about so silently – this was better than any such stories.
Alyokhin badly wanted to go to sleep; he had started in at the farm work early, at three o’clock in the morning, and now his eyes were closing, but he was afraid that his guests might discuss something interesting without him, and he didn’t want that. He didn’t try to grasp whether what Ivan Ivanych had said was wise or just; that the guests didn’t discuss grain or hay or tar but things that had no direct connection to his life pleased him, and he wanted them to go on . . .
“Well I’m ready to sleep,” Burkin, said as he stood up. “Let me wish you a good night.”
Alyokhin took his leave, went off to his room downstairs, and his guests stayed above. A large room was allocated to the two of them for the night, and in it stood two wooden bedsteads with ornamental carvings, and in a corner was an ivory crucifix; each of their beds was wide, freshly made by the beautiful Pelageya, smelling pleasantly of clean linen.
Ivan Ivanych undressed in silence and lay down.
“Lord, pardon us sinners,” he said and pulled the covers over his head.
From his pipe lying on the table there was a strong smell of burnt tobacco, and for a long time Burkin couldn’t sleep but couldn’t understand where the strong smell was coming from.
The rain beat against the windows all night.
3 About Love
Alyokhin had told them that the beautiful Pelageya was in love with this cook. Since he was a drinker with a violent temper, she didn’t want to marry him, but offered to live with him all the same. But he was very pious, and his religious principles wouldn’t allow him to live like that. He insisted that she marry him – he would have nothing else – and when he was drinking he berated her, even hit her. When he was drinking she hid in the upstairs, sobbing, and then Alyokhin and his housekeeper wouldn’t leave the place so they could defend her if that was necessary.
They began to talk about love.
“How love comes into being,” Alyokhin said, “why Pelageya didn’t fall in love with somebody more suitable for her with her inward and outward qualities, but instead chose to love that mug Nikanor” – everyone called him the ugly mug – “since what matters in love is personal happiness, it’s beyond all knowing, say what you like about it. Up till now we have only this irrefutable truth about love – ‘It’s a sheer, utter mystery,’ – every other single thing that has been said or written about it is not an answer but a reframing of the question, which remains unresolved. The explanation which would seem to be right for one case isn’t right for ten others, so what’s much the best, in my judgment, is to explain each case separately, not attempting to generalize. What we need, as the doctors say, is to individualize each separate case.”
“Absolutely right,” Burkin agreed.
“We respectable Russians nourish a prediliction for such questions, but we have no answers. Ordinarily love is poeticized, adorned with roses and nightingales, but we Russians have to dress up our love with disastrous questions. Chances are we’ll pick out the most uninteresting. In Moscow when I was still a student I had a girl in my life, sweet, ladylike, but every time I took her in my arms, she thought about what monthly allowance I’d give her and what a pound of suet cost that day. Really! And when we’re in love we don’t stop asking ourselves these questions: sincere or insincere, wise or foolish, what our love is revealing, and so on and on. Whether this is good or bad I don’t know, what it gets in the way of, fails to satisfy, irritates, I just don’t know.”
It was like this when he had something he wanted to talk about. With people living alone there was always some such thing in their thoughts, something they were eager to say. In the city bachelors went to the baths or the restaurants on purpose just so they could chat or sometimes tell their so-interesting stories to the attendants or the waiters, and then in the country they habitually poured out their thoughts to their guests. At that moment all you could see outside the window was a grey sky and trees wet with rain; in this weather there was no place to go and nothing remained but to tell stories and listen to them.