“No, sir, it’s time, it’s long since time,” he went on with passion. “We’re too late, sir, and, in my view, humaneness is the first thing, humaneness with subordinates, remembering that they, too, are people. Humaneness will save everything and keep it afloat…”
“Hee, hee, hee, hee!” came from Semyon Ivanovich’s direction.
“But, anyhow, why are you scolding us so?” Stepan Nikiforovich finally objected, smiling amiably. “I confess, Ivan Ilyich, so far I’m unable to get the sense of what you’re so kindly explaining. You put forward humaneness. That means the love of mankind, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, if you wish, the love of mankind. I…”
“Excuse me, sir. As far as I’m able to judge, the point is not just in that. Love of mankind is always proper. But the reform is not limited to that. Questions have come up about the peasants, the courts, management, tax-farming,7 morality, and… and… and there’s no end to them, these questions, and all together, all at once, they may produce great, so to speak, upheavals. That’s what we’re worried about, not just humaneness…”
“Yes, sir, the thing goes a bit deeper,” Semyon Ivanovich observed.
“I understand very well, sir, and allow me to observe, Semyon Ivanovich, that I shall by no means agree to lag behind you in the depth of my understanding of things,” Ivan Ilyich observed caustically and much too sharply. “However, even so I shall make so bold as to observe that you, Stepan Nikiforovich, also have not quite understood me…”
“No, I haven’t.”
“And yet I precisely hold to and maintain everywhere the idea that humaneness, and precisely humaneness with subordinates, from clerk to scrivener, from scrivener to household servant, from servant to peasant—humaneness, I say, may serve, so to speak, as the cornerstone of the forthcoming reform and generally toward the renewal of things. Why? Because. Take the syllogism: I am humane, consequently they love me. They love me, therefore they feel trust. They feel trust, therefore they believe; they believe, therefore they love… that is, no, I mean to say, if they believe, they will also believe in the reform, understand, so to speak, the very essence of the matter, will, so to speak, embrace each other morally and resolve the whole matter amicably, substantially. Why are you laughing, Semyon Ivanovich? Is it not clear?”
Stepan Nikiforovich silently raised his eyebrows; he was surprised.
“I think I’ve had a bit too much to drink,” Semyon Ivanych observed venomously, “that’s why I’m hard of understanding. A certain darkening of the mind, sir.”
Ivan Ilyich winced.
“We won’t hold out,” Stepan Nikiforovich said suddenly, after slight reflection.
“That is, how is it we won’t hold out?” asked Ivan Ilyich, surprised at Stepan Nikiforovich’s sudden and fragmentary observation.
“Just so, we won’t hold out.” Stepan Nikiforovich obviously did not wish to expand further.
“You don’t mean about new wine in new bottles?”8 Ivan Ilyich objected, not without irony. “Ah, no, sir; I can answer for myself.”
At that moment the clock struck half past eleven.
“They sit and sit, then up and go,” said Semyon Ivanych, preparing to get up from his place. But Ivan Ilyich forestalled him, rising from the table at once and taking his sable hat from the mantelpiece. He looked as if offended.
“Well, then, Semyon Ivanych, you’ll think?” said Stepan Nikiforovich, seeing his guests off.
“About the apartment, you mean? I’ll think, I’ll think, sir.”
“And let me know quickly once you decide.”
“Still business?” Mr. Pralinsky observed amiably, fawning somewhat and playing with his hat. It seemed to him that he was being forgotten.
Stepan Nikiforovich raised his eyebrows and said nothing, as a sign that he was not keeping his guests. Semyon Ivanych hastily took his leave.
“Ah… well… as you wish, then… since you don’t understand simple amiability,” Mr. Pralinsky decided to himself, and somehow with particular independence offered his hand to Stepan Nikiforovich.
In the front hall Ivan Ilyich wrapped himself in his light, expensive fur coat, trying for some reason to ignore Semyon Ivanych’s shabby raccoon, and they both started down the stairs.
“Our old man seemed offended,” Ivan Ilyich said to the silent Semyon Ivanych.
“No, why?” the other replied calmly and coldly.
“The flunky!” Ivan Ilyich thought to himself.
They came out on the porch, and Semyon Ivanych’s sleigh with its homely gray stallion drove up.
“What the devil! Where has Trifon gone with my carriage!” Ivan Ilyich cried, not seeing his equipage.
They looked this way and that—no carriage. Stepan Nikiforovich’s man had no idea about it. They turned to Varlaam, Semyon Ivanych’s coachman, and received the answer that he had been standing there all the while, and the carriage had been there, too, but now they were no more.
“A nasty anecdote!” said Mr. Shipulenko. “Want me to give you a lift?”
“Scoundrelly folk!” Mr. Pralinsky cried in rage. “The rascal asked me to let him go to some wedding here on the Petersburg side, some female crony was getting married, devil take her. I strictly forbade him to leave. And now I’ll bet he’s gone there!”
“Actually,” Varlaam observed, “he did go there, sir, and he promised to manage it in just one minute, that is, to be here right on time.”
“So there! I just knew it! He’ll catch it from me!”
“You’d better give him a couple of good whippings at the police station, then he’ll follow your orders,” Semyon Ivanych said, covering himself with a rug.
“Kindly don’t trouble yourself, Semyon Ivanych!”
“So you don’t want a lift?”
“Safe journey, merci.”
Semyon Ivanych drove off, and Ivan Ilyich went by foot along the wooden planks, feeling a rather strong irritation.
“No, you’ll catch it from me now, you rogue! I’ll go by foot on purpose so that you’ll feel it, so that you’ll get scared! He’ll come back and find out that the master went by foot… blackguard!”
Ivan Ilyich had never cursed like that before, but he was very furious, and besides there was a clamor in his head. He was not used to drinking and therefore some five or six glasses worked quickly. But the night was delightful. It was frosty, but unusually calm and windless. The sky was clear, starry. The full moon flooded the earth with a matted silver gleam. It was so good that Ivan Ilyich, having gone some fifty steps, almost forgot his troubles. He was beginning to feel somehow especially pleasant. Besides, tipsy people change impressions quickly. He was even starting to like the plain wooden houses on the deserted street.
“It’s really nice that I went by foot,” he thought to himself, “both a lesson to Trifon and a pleasure for me. Indeed, I must go by foot more often. So what? On Bolshoi Prospect I’ll find a cab at once. A nice night! What wretched little houses here. Must all be petty folk, clerks… merchants, maybe… that Stepan Nikiforovich! and what retrogrades they all are, the old nightcaps! Precisely nightcaps, c’est le mot!9 He’s an intelligent man, though; he has this bon sens10 a sober, practical understanding of things. No, but these old men, old men! They lack… what do you call it? Well, they lack something… We won’t hold out! What did he mean by that? He even fell to thinking when he said it. By the way, he didn’t understand me at all. But how could he not? It’s harder not to understand than to understand. Above all, I’m convinced, convinced in my soul. Humaneness… love of mankind. Restore man to himself… revive his personal dignity, and then… with this ready material get down to business. Seems clear! Yes, sir! I beg your pardon, Your Excellency, take the syllogism: we meet a clerk, for instance, a poor, downtrodden clerk. ‘Well… what are you?’ Answer: ‘A clerk.’ All right, so he’s a clerk; then: ‘What kind of a clerk?’ Answer: such-and-such kind. ‘You’re in the civil service?’ ‘I am!’ ‘Want to be happy?’ ‘I do.’ ‘What does one need for happiness?’ This and that. ‘Why?’ Because… And so the man understands me after a couple of words: the man is mine, the man is caught, so to speak, in the net, and I can do whatever I like with him—for his own good, that is. A nasty man, this Semyon Ivanych! And such a nasty mug… A whipping at the police station—he said it on purpose. No, lies, you do the whipping, I won’t; I’ll get Trifon with words, I’ll get him with reproaches, and he’ll feel it. About birch rods,11 hm… an unsolved problem, hm… But shouldn’t I stop at Emerance’s? Pah, the devil, you cursed planks!” he cried, suddenly tripping. “And this is the capital! Enlightenment! You could break a leg. Hm. I hate this Semyon Ivanych; a most disgusting mug. He sniggered at me tonight when I said they’d embrace each other morally. So they will, and what do you care? You I won’t embrace; sooner a peasant… I’ll meet a peasant, and talk with a peasant. Anyhow, I was drunk, and maybe didn’t express myself properly. Maybe I’m not expressing myself properly now either… Hm. I’m never going to drink. You babble in the evening, then the next day you repent. So what, I’m not staggering as I walk… And anyhow, they’re all rogues!”