Chapter Three
I
THREE DAYS LATER I got up in the morning and suddenly felt, standing on my legs, that I wouldn’t stay in bed anymore. I fully felt the nearness of recovery. All these little details are maybe not worth including, but then came several days which, though nothing special happened, have all remained in my memory as something delightful and calm, and that is a rare thing in my memories. My inner state I will not meanwhile formulate; if the reader learned what it consisted in, he certainly wouldn’t believe it. Better if everything becomes clear later from the facts. And meanwhile I’ll just say one thing: let the reader remember about the soul of a spider. And that in a man who wanted to go away from them all and from the whole world in the name of “seemliness”! The yearning for seemliness was there in the highest degree, that was certainly so, but how it could be combined with God knows what other yearnings—is a mystery to me. And it has always been a mystery, and I’ve marveled a thousand times at this ability of man (and, it seems, of the Russian man above all) to cherish the highest ideal in his soul alongside the greatest baseness, and all that in perfect sincerity. Whether it’s a special breadth in the Russian man, which will take him far, or simply baseness—that’s the question!
But let’s leave that. One way or another, a lull came. I simply understood that I had to get well at all costs and as soon as possible, so that I could begin to act as soon as possible, and therefore I resolved to live hygienically and obey the doctor (whoever he was), and with extreme reasonableness (the fruit of breadth) I put off stormy designs till the day of my going out, that is, till my recovery. How all these peaceful impressions and the enjoyment of the lull could combine with a painfully sweet and anxious throbbing of the heart at the anticipation of imminent, stormy decisions—I don’t know, but, again, I attribute it all to “breadth.” But the former recent restlessness was no longer in me; I put it all off for a while, no longer trembling before the future as just recently, but like a rich man assured of his means and powers. My arrogance and defiance of the fate awaiting me swelled more and more, partly, I suppose, from my now actual recovery and the quick return of my vital forces. It is these several days of final and even actual recovery that I recall now with full pleasure.
Oh, they forgave me everything, that is, my outburst, and these were the very same people I had called unseemly to their faces! I like that in people, I call it intelligence of the heart; at least it attracted me at once—to a certain degree, of course. Versilov and I, for instance, went on speaking like the best acquaintances, but to a certain degree: as soon as there was a glimpse of too much expansiveness (and there were glimpses), we both restrained ourselves at once, as if a bit ashamed of something. There are occasions when the victor can’t help being ashamed before the one he has vanquished, precisely for having overcome him. The victor was obviously I; and I was ashamed.
That morning, that is, when I got out of bed after the relapse of my illness, he came to see me, and then I learned from him for the first time about their agreement concerning mama and Makar Ivanovich; he also observed that, though the old man felt better, the doctor would not answer positively for him. I gave him my heartfelt promise to behave more prudently in the future. As Versilov was telling me all that, I then suddenly noticed for the first time that he himself was extremely and sincerely concerned for this old man, that is, far more than I would have expected from a man like him, and that he looked upon him as a being for some reason especially dear to him, and not only because of mama. This interested me at once, almost surprised me, and, I confess, without Versilov I might out of inattention have missed and failed to appreciate much in this old man, who left one of the most lasting and original impressions in my heart.
Versilov seemed to have fears about my attitude towards Makar Ivanovich; that is, he trusted neither my intelligence nor my tact, and therefore he was extremely pleased later, when he discerned that I could occasionally understand how to treat a person of totally different notions and views—in short, that I was able to be both yielding and broad when necessary. I also confess (without humiliating myself, I think) that in this being who was from the people I found something totally new for me in regard to certain feelings and views, something unknown to me, something much clearer and more comforting than the way I myself had understood these things before. Nevertheless, it was sometimes impossible not to get simply beside oneself from certain decided prejudices which he believed with the most shocking calmness and steadfastness. But here, of course, only his lack of education was to blame, while his soul was rather well organized, even so well that I’ve never yet come across anything better of its kind in people.
II
WHAT WAS MOST attractive about him, as I’ve already noted above, was his extreme candor and the absence of the slightest self-love; the feeling was of an almost sinless heart. There was “mirth” of heart, and therefore also “seemliness.” He loved the word “mirth” very much and used it often. True, one sometimes found a sort of morbid rapture in him, as it were, a sort of morbidity of tenderness—in part, I suppose, due also to the fever which, truly speaking, never left him all that time; but that did not interfere with the seemliness. There were also contrasts: alongside an astonishing simpleheartedness, sometimes completely unaware of irony (often to my vexation), there also lived in him a sort of clever subtlety, most often in polemical clashes. And he liked polemics, but only occasionally and in his own way. It was evident that he had walked a lot through Russia, had heard a lot, but, I repeat, he liked tender feeling most of all, and therefore all that led to it, and he himself liked to tell things that moved people to tenderness. Generally he liked telling stories. I heard a lot from him both about his own wanderings and various legends from the lives of the most ancient “ascetics.” I’m not familiar with these things, but I think he distorted a lot in these legends, having learned them mostly by word of mouth from simple folk. It was simply impossible to accept certain things. But alongside obvious alterations or simple lies, there were always flashes of something astonishingly wholesome, full of popular feeling, and always conducive to tenderness . . . Among these stories, for instance, I remember a long one, “The Life of Mary of Egypt.”7 Up to that time I had had no conception of this “Life,” nor of almost any like it. I’ll say outright: it was almost impossible to endure it without tears, and not from tender feeling, but from some sort of strange rapture. You felt something extraordinary and hot, like that scorching sandy desert with its lions, in which the saint wandered. However, I don’t want to speak of it, and am also not competent.
Besides tenderness, I liked in him certain sometimes extremely original views of certain still quite disputable things in modern reality. He once told, for instance, a recent story about a discharged soldier; he was almost a witness to this event. A soldier came home from the service, back to the peasants, and he didn’t like living with the peasants again, and the peasants didn’t like him either. The man went astray, took to drinking, and robbed somebody somewhere; there was no firm evidence, but they seized him anyhow and took him to court. In court his lawyer all but vindicated him—there was no evidence, and that was that—when suddenly the man listened, listened, and suddenly stood up and interrupted the lawyer: “No, you quit talking.” And he told everything “to the last speck”; he confessed everything, with tears and repentance. The jury went and locked themselves in for the decision, then suddenly they all come out: “No, not guilty.” Everybody shouted, rejoiced, and the soldier just stood rooted to the spot, as if he’d turned into a post, didn’t understand anything; nor did he understand anything from what the magistrate told him in admonition as he let him go. The soldier was set free again, and still didn’t believe it. He began to be anguished, brooded, didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t speak to people, and on the fifth day he up and hanged himself. “That’s how it is to live with a sin on your soul!” Makar Ivanovich concluded. This story is, of course, a trifling one, and there’s an endless number of them now in all the newspapers, but I liked the tone of it, and most of all a few little phrases, decidedly with a new thought in them. Speaking, for instance, of how the soldier returned to his village and the peasants didn’t like him, Makar Ivanovich said, “And you know what a soldier is: a soldier is a peasant gone bad.” Speaking later about the lawyer who all but won the case, he also said: “And you know what a lawyer is: a lawyer is a hired conscience.” He uttered both of these expressions without any effort and unaware of having done so, and yet in these two expressions there is a whole special view of both subjects, and though, of course, it doesn’t belong to the whole people, still it’s Makar Ivanovich’s own and not borrowed! These ready notions among the people to do with certain subjects are sometimes wonderful in their originality.