' What did she say ? '
'She is positively glad now that you have deserted her.'
' What! glad!' said Alexandr gloomily.
'Yes, glad.'
'Did you notice no regret, no grief in her? was she indifferent ? This is beyond everything.'
He began to pace the room uneasily.
' Glad, calm !' he repeated; ' that's a nice idea! I will go to her this instant.'
' Here's a man !' observed Piotr Ivanitch, ' this is the heart; you may live among men—you will be all right But were you not afraid of her sending for you ? did you not beg for assistance ? and now you are upset because she isn't dying of grief at being separated from you.'
' How mean I am, how worthless !' said Alexandr, falter-ingly ; ' I have no heart! I am pitiful, base in spirit!'
' And all through love!' interposed Piotr Iv anitch . ' Such a stupid pursuit; leave it to fellows like ?iirkol But you are a sensible boy; you might busy yourself-wtth something of more consequence. You have done enough running after women.'
' But you love your wife, I suppose ? '
' Yes, of course. I am very well suited to her, but it
does not prevent me from doing my work. Well, good-bye,
come in.'
Alexandr sat perplexed and gloomy. Yevsay stole up to him with a boot, into which he thrust his hand.
' Kindly look at it, sir,' he said tenderly, ' what blacking! you can shine it like a mirror, but it costs only sixpence !'
Alexandr started, looked mechanically at the boot, then at Yevsay.
' Get away !' he said, ' you idiot!'
' We ought to send some to the country,' Yevsay began again.
' Get away, I tell you, go away ! ' shrieked Alexai almost in tears ; ' you bother me ... . you and youi/fioog will worry me into my grave .... you're .... a savage!'
Yevsay quickly vanished into the ante-room.
CHAPTER X.
' Why is it Alexandr does not come to see us ? I haven't seen him these three months,' said Piotr Ivanitch to his wife as he came home one day.
' I have quite given up the idea of ever seeing him,' she replied.
' Why, what's the matter with him ? Is he in love again, or what ? '
' I don't know.'
' Is he quite well ? '
' Yes.'
' Please write to him that I want to have a little conversation with him. There will be changes among them at his office again, and I fancy he does not know it.«, I don't understand such carelessness.'
' I have written and invited him ten times already. He says he has no time, but all the same he plays draughts with some queer companions and goes out angling. You had better go yourself; you would find out what's wrong with him.'
' What is he up to now ? There is no help for it, I will go. But it's the last time, I declare.'
Piotr Ivanitch, too, found Alexandr on the sofa. On his uncle's entrance he got up and took a seat.
' Are you unwell ? ' inquired Piotr Ivanitch.
' So, so/' replied Alexandr, yawning.
' What are you doing ? '
' Nothing.'
' And you can exist without doing anything ? '
' Yes.'
' I've been told to-day, Alexandr, that Ivanoff is leaving your department!'
' Yes, he's leaving.'
' Who will succeed him ? '
' They say Ichenko.'
' And what about you ? '
' They don't think enough of me. And probably I am not fitted for it.'
' Good Heavens, Alexandr, you must bestir yourself. You ought to go and see the director.'
' No,' said Alexandr, shaking his head.
u But this is now the third time you've been passed over.'
' I don't care ; so be it.'
' Come, think a little, what will you say when your former subordinate begins to give you orders, or when he comes in and you have to get up and salute him ? '
' Why, I shall get up and salute him.'
' But your self-respect ? '
' I have none.'
' But you have some interests of some kind in life ? '
' None at all. I had and they are over.'
'That cannot be; one set of interests replaces another. Why are they over for you, and not over for other people ? It would be rather early for that, I should say ; you are not yet thirty.'
Alexandr shrugged his shoulders.
u Do remember that you, like every one else, ought to make for yourself a career of some kind. Do you sometimes think of that ? '
' Of course I I have made it already.'
' How so ? '
' I have marked out for myself a sphere of activity and I don't wish to go beyond it. I am a householder here ; that's my career. 1 am fed and clothed; I have enough for that.'
'And very badly clothed now,' remarked his uncle. ' And is that all you want ? '
« Yes, all.'
' But the attraction of intellectual and spiritual pleasures, and art?' Piotr Ivanitch was beginning mimicking Alexandra intonation. ' You might go forwards; yours is a higher vocation; your duty summons you to noble activity. And your strivings for what is higher—have you forgotten ? '
' Confound them ! ' said Alexandr uneasily. ' You too, uncle have begun to be high-flown. This never attacked you before. Isn't it for my benefit ? It's trouble thrown away ! I did strive for something .... do you recollect what came ofit?'
' I remember that you wanted to be a minister all of a sudden, and then an author. Still you have proved that you can work and be something in time. But it's long and weary waiting, we want it all at once; we don't succeed, and we lose heart'
'But I don't want to strive for something higher. I have found a place for myself, and I shall stay there for ever. I have found some simple, unsophisticated people; it's no matter that they're limited in intellect. I play draughts and go fishing with them—and it's capital! Let me be punished, as you consider, for it, let me be deprived of rewards, honour, money, a higher vocation—and all that you are so in love with. I have renounced for ever '
'You want, Alexandr, to pretend to be contented and indifferent to everything, but your vexation effervesces even in your words; you are speaking as though with tears instead of words. You are full of bitterness; you don't know what to vent it on, because you alone are to blame.'
' So be it! ' said Alexandr.
Piotr Ivanitch looked at him without speaking. He had_ g rown thin again. His eyes were sunk en. On his cheeks and brows premature wnnkles were visible.
His uncle was alarmed. Spiritual suffering he scarcely believed in, but he was afraid that the beginning of some physical disease lay hid under this exhaustion. ' I declare,' he thought, ' the boy is going out of his mind, and then to break it to his mother; what a correspondence ! she would be certain to come up here too.'
