Outside the gate, on the footpath between the wall and the birches, where benches stood, it was already evening. The air was darkening very quickly…The princess strolled along the footpath, sat down on a bench, and fell to thinking.
She thought that it would be good to settle for her whole life in this monastery, where life was as quiet and serene as a summer evening; it would be good to forget completely about her ungrateful and libertine prince, about her enormous fortune, about the creditors who bothered her every day, about her misfortunes, about the maid Dasha, who had an insolent expression on her face that morning. It would be good to sit here on the bench for her whole life and look through the trunks of the birches at how wisps of evening mist hover at the foot of the hill; at how, far away over the forest, in a black cloud like a veil, rooks fly to their night roost; at how two novices—one mounted on a piebald horse, the other on foot—drive the horses to their night pasture and, rejoicing in their freedom, frolic like little children, their young voices ringing out in the motionless air so that you can catch every word. It was good to sit and listen to the silence: now the wind blows and stirs the tops of the birches, now a frog rustles in last year’s leaves, now the bell behind the wall strikes the quarter hour…To sit motionless, listen, and think, think, think…
An old woman with a sack went by. The princess thought it would be good to stop this woman and say something tender, soulful, to help her…But the old woman turned the corner without looking at her even once.
A little later a tall man with a gray beard and wearing a straw hat appeared on the footpath. Coming up to the princess, he took off his hat and bowed, and by his big bald spot and sharp, hooked nose the princess recognized him as Doctor Mikhail Ivanovich, who some five years earlier had worked for her in Dubovki. She remembered someone telling her that the doctor’s wife had died a year ago, and she wanted to show him sympathy, to comfort him.
“You probably don’t recognize me, Doctor?” she asked, smiling affably.
“No, Princess, I did recognize you,” the doctor said, taking off his hat again.
“Well, thank you, and here I thought you’d forgotten your princess. People only remember their enemies, not their friends. So you’ve come to pray?”
“I’m here overnight every Saturday, on duty. I treat people.”
“Well, how are you?” the princess asked, sighing. “I heard that your wife passed away! What a misfortune!”
“Yes, Princess, for me it is a great misfortune.”
“What can be done? We should humbly bear our misfortunes. Not a single hair falls from a man’s head without the will of Providence.”
“Yes, Princess.”
To the princess’s meek, affable smile and her sighs, the doctor replied coldly and drily: “Yes, Princess.” And the expression on his face was cold and dry.
“What else should I tell him?” thought the princess.
“It’s so long since we’ve seen each other, though!” she said. “Five years! So much water has flowed under the bridge in that time, so many changes have occurred, it’s even frightening to think of it! You know I got married…from a countess I’ve become a princess. And I’m already separated from my husband.”
“Yes, I heard.”
“God has sent me many trials! You’ve probably also heard that I’m almost ruined. To pay my unfortunate husband’s debts, my estates in Dubovki and Kiryakovo and Sofyino have been sold. I have only Baranovo and Mikhaltsevo left. It’s frightening to look back: so many changes, all sorts of misfortunes, so many mistakes!”
“Yes, Princess, many mistakes.”
The princess was slightly embarrassed. She knew her mistakes; they were all of such an intimate sort that she alone could think and speak of them. She could not help herself and asked:
“What mistakes are you thinking of?”
“You’ve mentioned them, which means you know…,” the doctor replied and smiled wryly. “Why talk about them?”
“No, tell me, Doctor. I’ll be very grateful to you! And please don’t stand on ceremony with me. I love hearing the truth.”
“I’m not your judge, Princess.”
“My judge? If you speak in such a tone, it means you know something. Tell me!”
“If you wish, I will. Only, unfortunately, I’m not a good speaker, and it’s not always possible to understand me.”
The doctor thought a little and began:
“There are many mistakes, but in fact the main one, in my opinion, was the general spirit that…that reigned in all your estates. You see, I’m not good at expressing myself. The main thing was this—a dislike, an aversion to people, which was felt in positively everything. Your whole system of life was built on this aversion. Aversion to the human voice, to faces, the backs of heads, ways of walking…in short, to everything that makes up a human being. In all the doorways and on the stairs stand well-fed, crude and lazy lackeys in livery, to keep improperly dressed people from entering the house; the chairs in the front hall have high backs, so that during balls and receptions the servants won’t soil the wallpaper with their heads; there are thick rugs in all the rooms, so that human footsteps will not be heard; whoever enters is warned to talk little and softly, and to avoid saying anything that might affect the imagination or the nerves. And in your study a visitor does not get a handshake and is not invited to sit down, just as now you did not shake my hand or invite me to sit down…”
“Very well, if you want!” said the princess, holding out her hand and smiling. “To be angry over such a trifle, really…”
“Do I seem angry?” The doctor laughed, but immediately flushed, took off his hat, and, waving it, began to speak heatedly. “Frankly speaking, I’ve been waiting a long time for a chance to tell you everything, everything…That is, I want to tell you that you look at all people Napoleonically, as cannon fodder. But Napoleon at least had an idea of some sort, while you have nothing except an aversion to people!”
“So I have an aversion to people!” the princess smiled, shrugging her shoulders in amazement. “Do I!”
“Yes, you do! You need facts? Very well! In your Mikhaltsevo three of your former cooks live by begging. They went blind in your kitchens from the heat of the stoves. On your many thousands of acres, all that there is of healthy, strong, and handsome, all of it has been taken by you and your hangers-on as servants, lackeys, coachmen. All this two-legged livestock is being bred for lackeydom; they overeat, grow crude, lose the image and likeness,2 in short…Young doctors, agronomists, teachers, intelligent workers in general, my God, they’re taken from their work, from honest labor, and forced for the sake of a crust of bread to participate in all sorts of puppet comedies that are an embarrassment for any decent person! Before three years go by, a young man in your service turns into a hypocrite, a lickspittle, a squealer…Is that good? Your Polish managers, these lowdown spies, all these Kasimirs and Kaetans, prowl over your thousands of acres from morning to night and try to take three hides off one ox just to please you. Sorry, I’m not putting things very systematically, but never mind! Simple people on your estates don’t count as human beings. And those princes, counts, and bishops who visited you, you considered as décor, not as living people. But the main thing…the main thing, which outrages me most of all—you have a fortune of over a million, and you do nothing for people, nothing!”
The princess sat there astonished, frightened, offended, not knowing what to say or how to behave. No one had ever spoken to her in such a tone. The doctor’s unpleasant, angry voice, his awkward, faltering speech, produced in her ears and head a sharp, rapping noise, and after a while it seemed to her that the gesticulating doctor was hitting her on the head with his hat.