' It was not neglect'
'What then!'
u Oh !' said Alexandr sighing. ' Good-bye, ma tante?
' Stop ! what have I done to you ? what's the matter with you, Alexandr ? Why are you like this ? why are you indifferent to everything, why do you go nowhere, and live in company not fit for you ? '
' I don't know, I like this way of living; to live so suits me.'
' Suits you ? Do you find food for your mind and your heart in such a life, in such people ? '
Alexandr nodded.
' You are pretending, Alexandr; you are very unhappy about something, and you won't speak of it. In old days you found some one to confide your troubles to; you knew you could always find consolation or at least sympathy; have you no one now ? '
' No one!'
' You trust in no one ? '
'No one.'
p
' Do you never think of your poor mother—her love for you—her fondness? Has it never struck you that here perhaps is one who loves you, if not as she does, at least as a sister or, still more, as a friend?'
'Good-bye, ma tante ' he said.
' Good-bye, Alexandr, I will not detain you any more,' replied his aunt. There were tears in her eyes.
Alexandr was just taking his hat, then he laid it down and looked at Lizaveta Alexandrovna.
' No, I cannot run away from you; I have not the strength to do it,' he said ; ' what are you doing to me ? '
' Be the old Alexandr again, if only for one minute. Tell me, confide in me all.'
u Yes, I cannot keep it from you; I will tell you all that is in my heart,' he said. ' You ask why I hide myself away from the world, why I am indifferent to everything, why I don't visit even you ? . . . . what is the reason ? You must understand that for a long time past life has been hateful to me, and I have chosen for myself the kind of existence in which it is least perceptibly so. I want nothing, I seek nothing except peace, the slumber of the soul. I have thoroughly seen through all the emptiness and all the nothingness of life, and I despise it profoundly. The activity and bustle, the anxieties and sensations, I am sick of it all. I don't want to seek and try for anything: I have no aims, because what you go after, you attain—and then you see it was all a dream. All pleasures are less for me; I have grown indifferent to them. In the polite world, in society, I feel more intensely the evils of life, but alone at home, away from the herd, I vegetate; whatever chance befalls me in that slumber I observe neither mankind nor myself. I do nothing, and see nothing of my own or other's actions and am at ease, and all is indifferent to me— happiness I cannot have, but I am not a prey to unhappiness.'
' It's awful, Alexandr,' said his aunt; ' such indifference to everything at your age.' ^ ~~~ -
He made a gesture of despair.
' But there are tears in your eyes; you are still just the same; don't disguise it, don't check your feelings, give them vent.'
'What for? I shall be none the better for it. I shall only suffer more acutely. This evening has lowered me in my own eyes. I saw clearly that I have no right to blame
any one for my misery. I have myself been the ruin of my life. I dreamed of glory, goodness knows why, and neglected _ my work; I made a failure of my humble occupation, and 1 now I cannot make up for the past; it's too late ! I avoided J the herd, I despised it; but that German, for all his grand deep soul and poetic nature, does not renounce the world or avoid the herd; he is proud of its applause. He understands that he is a scarcely perceptible link in the endless chain of humanity; he too knows all I do ; suffering is not strange to him. You heard how he put the whole of life into his music, its bliss and its pains, the delight and the torture of the soul. He understands it. How petty, how worthless in my own eyes I suddenly become to-day, I with my misery, my sufferings! . . . . He awakened in me the bitter consciousness that I am proud and feeble. Ah! why did you invite me ? Good-bye; let me go.'
' Then am I to blame, Alexandr ? Could I awaken any bitter consciousness—I ? '
' Yes, that's what's so terrible! Your pure angel-face, ma tante, your gentle words and kind hand .... all agitates -and touches me. I long to weep, I long to live again, I yearn;—and what's the use ? '
'Why ask what's the use? Stay with us always, and if you consider me only partly worthy of your affection, perhaps you will find consolation in some other; I am not the only one .... you will be appreciated. You will marry .... will love . . . .' she said feebly.
' I marry! what an idea ? Can you imagine I would entrust my happiness to a woman, even if I felt any love for her, which also is impossible ? Or do you imagine I could undertake to make a woman happy ? No, I know we should be deceiving one another and both be deceiving ourselves. My uncle, Piotr Ivanitch, and experience have taught me.'
' Piotr Ivanitch 1 ah, he has much to answer for!' said Lizaveta Alexandrovna with a sigh; ' but you would have done well not to listen to him .... and you would have been happy in marriage.'
' Yes, in the country, I daresay; but now .... No, ma tante, marriage is not for me. I cannot disguise it from myself now, when I cease to care for any one, and be happy; and I could not even Jielp seeing when my wife was disguising her feelings; * we should both have to play a
part, just as, for instance, you and my uncle play your parts.'
' We ? ' said Lizaveta Alexandrovna in bewilderment and dismay.
'Yes, you! Tell me, are you as happy as you once dreamed of being?'
'Not as I dreamed of being, but happy in a different way from my dreams, more rationally, possibly even more so —isn't it all the same ? ' replied Lizaveta Alexandrovna in confusion : ' and you too '
' More rationally ! Ah, ma (ante, you would never have said that: one see's my uncle's hand ! I know that's happiness according to his system : more rational, I daresay, but happier ? Why, everything is happiness with him, he has no unhappiness. Confound him ! No! my life is a failure ; I am worn out, weary of life.'
Both were silent. Alexandr glanced towards his hat, his aunt was trying to find some way to detain him longer.
' But your talent! ' she said, suddenly reviving.
' Oh, ma tantey you want to make fun of us ! You have forgotten the proverb,' Let sleeping dogs lie.' I have no talent, absolutely none. I have feeling, I had a fertile brain; I took my dreams for genius and wrote. Not long ago I came upon one of the old scribbles I used to perpetrate, and I reaci it though it was ridiculous even to me. My uncle was right in making me burn all there was. Ah, if I could but recall the past, I would make a very different use of it!'
'Don't be so utterly pessimistic !' she said; 'every one of us has to bear some heavy cross.'
'Who has got a cross?' asked Piotr Ivanitch, entering the room, 'How do you do? May I congratulate you, t Alexandr! is it you ? '
i Piotr Ivanitch was bent and moved his legs with ^ ' difficulty.
' Yes, but not the kind of cross you imagine,' said Lizaveta Alexandrovna; ' I am speaking of the crosses Alexandr has to put up with.'
' What has he to put up with now ? ' asked Piotr Ivanitch, lowering himself with the greatest precaution into an armchair. ' Ugh ! what pain! what a visitation it is!'
Lizaveta Alexandrovna helped him to sit down, laid a cushion behind his back, and put a foot-stool under his feet.
' What's wrong with you, uncle ? ' asked Alexandr.
' You see it's a heavy cross I have to bear ! Ugh; my back! A cross, yes, it is a cross; I have brought it on myself though ! Ah, my God 1'
' You will sit so much ; you know the climate here,' said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. 'The doctor told you to take more exercise, but no; in the morning he is writing, in the evening playing cards.'
' What, am I to go gaping about the streets wasting my time ? '
' That's why you are punished.'
'There's no escaping this trouble here if you want to attend to your work. Who is there who doesn't suffer with his back ? It's almost a distinct mark of a business man ; ah, one can't straighten one's spine ! Well, what are
