But usually even these rare moments do not come without poison. As if for a laugh, Makar and the wretched fellow he meets deny each other’s talent, do not accept each other, envy, hate, become vexed, and finally part as enemies. And so their youth wears out, melts away, joyless, loveless, friendless, without inner peace, and without all that sullen Makar so loves to describe in the evenings, in moments of inspiration.
And with youth spring also passes.
1886
A NIGHTMARE
A PERMANENT MEMBER of the local committee on peasant affairs, Kunin, a young man of about thirty, who had just come back from Petersburg to his native Borisovo, first of all sent a mounted messenger to the village of Sinkovo for the priest there, Father Yakov Smirnov.
Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.
“Very glad to make your acquaintance!” said Kunin, meeting him in the front hall. “I’ve been living and serving here for a year now, I think it’s time we became acquainted. Kindly come in! But…you’re so young!” Kunin was surprised. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight, sir…,” Father Yakov replied, weakly shaking the proffered hand and blushing for some reason.
Kunin took the guest to his study and began to examine him.
“What a crude, peasant woman’s face!” he thought.
In fact, there was in Father Yakov’s face a good deal of the “peasant woman”: an upturned nose, bright red cheeks, and big gray-blue eyes with sparse, barely visible eyebrows. Long red hair, dry and smooth, descended to his shoulders like straight sticks. His moustache was just beginning to take the shape of a real masculine one, and his little beard belonged to that good-for-nothing sort that seminarians, for some reason, call “skippish”: sparse, quite transparent; it could not be smoothed or combed, it could only be plucked…All this meager vegetation sat there unevenly, in clumps, as if Father Yakov, deciding to make himself up as a priest and starting by gluing on a beard, was interrupted halfway through. He was wearing a cassock the color of weak chicory coffee with large patches on both elbows.
“A strange specimen…,” thought Kunin, looking at his mud-splashed skirts. “He comes to the house for the first time and can’t dress more decently.”
“Have a seat, Father,” he began, more casually than affably, moving an armchair to the desk. “Have a seat, please!”
Father Yakov coughed into his fist, lowered himself awkwardly onto the edge of the chair, and placed his palms on his knees. Undersized, narrow-chested, his face sweaty and flushed, from the first moment he made a very unpleasant impression on Kunin. Previously Kunin simply could not have conceived of there being such unrespectable and pathetic-looking priests in Russia, and he saw in Father Yakov’s pose, in this holding his palms on his knees and sitting on the edge, a lack of dignity and even obsequiousness.
“I have invited you on business, Father…,” Kunin began, settling against the back of his armchair. “It has fallen to my lot to have the pleasant duty of assisting you in your useful undertaking…The thing is that, on coming back from Petersburg, I found a letter on my desk from our marshal of the nobility.1 Egor Dmitrievich proposes to me that I take under my trusteeship the parish school that is about to open in your Sinkovo. I’m very glad, Father, with all my heart…Even more: I am delighted to accept this proposal!”
Kunin stood up and began to pace the study.
“Of course, it is known to Egor Dmitrievich, and probably to you, that I have no great means at my disposal. My estate is mortgaged, and I live only on my salary as a permanent member. Which means that you cannot count on great help from me, but that I will do everything in my power…And when do you think of opening your school, Father?”
“When there’s money…,” Father Yakov replied.
“Do you have any means at your disposal now?”
“Almost none, sir…The peasant assembly decided to pay thirty kopecks annually for every male soul,2 but that’s only a promise! At least two hundred roubles are needed to get started…”
“Hm…yes…Unfortunately, I don’t have such a sum now…” Kunin sighed. “I spent all I had on my trip and…even went into debt. Let’s try to think something up together.”
Kunin started thinking out loud. He gave his views and watched Father Yakov’s face, seeking approval or agreement in it. But that face was passionless, immobile, and expressed nothing except timidity and uneasiness. Looking at it, one might have thought that Kunin was talking about such abstruse things that Father Yakov did not understand them, listened only out of delicacy and at the same time fearing that he might be accused of not understanding.
“The fellow is obviously not very bright…,” Kunin thought. “Much too timid and a bit simple-minded.”
Father Yakov became slightly more animated and even smiled when a servant came into the study bringing a tray with two cups of tea and a plate of cookies. He took his glass and immediately began to drink.
“Shouldn’t we write to the bishop?” Kunin went on reasoning aloud. “As a matter of fact, it was not the district council, not us, but the high clerical authorities who raised the question of parish schools. It is really they who should specify the means. I remember reading that there was even a certain sum of money allocated for that purpose. Do you know anything about it?”
Father Yakov was so immersed in tea-drinking that he did not answer this question at once. He raised his gray-blue eyes to Kunin, thought a little, and, as if recalling his question, shook his head negatively. An expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary, prosaic appetite was spreading over his unattractive face from ear to ear. He was drinking and relishing every gulp. Having drunk it all to the last drop, he set his glass on the table, then picked it up again, studied the bottom, and set it down again. The expression of pleasure slipped from his face. Then Kunin saw his guest take a cookie from the plate, bite off a little piece, then turn it around in his fingers and quickly stick it in his pocket.
“Well, that is entirely un-clerical!” thought Kunin, shrugging squeamishly. “What is it, priestly greed or childishness?”
Having let his guest drink a cup of tea and accompanied him to the front hall, Kunin lay down on the sofa and surrendered himself entirely to the unpleasant feeling evoked in him by Father Yakov’s visit.
“What a strange, uncouth man!” he thought. “Dirty, slovenly, coarse, stupid, and probably a drunkard…My God, and this is a priest, a spiritual father! A teacher of the people! I can imagine how much irony there must be in the deacon’s voice as he intones before every liturgy: ‘Bless, master!’ A fine master! A master who doesn’t have a drop of dignity, ill-bred, hiding cookies in his pocket like a schoolboy…Ugh! Good Lord, where was the bishop looking when he ordained this man? What do they think of the people, if they give them such teachers? What’s needed here is people who…”
And Kunin began to think about what Russian priests should be like…
“If I, for instance, were a priest…A well-educated priest who loves what he does can achieve a great deal…I’d have opened a school long ago. And sermons? If a priest is sincere and inspired by love for his work, what wonderful, fiery sermons he could give!”