On the Eve

food, and everything will be right directly. Take your place in the landscape, live in the body, my dear boy. And after all, what is nature? what's the use of it? Only hear the word, love—what an intense, glowing sound it has! Nature —what a cold, pedantic expression. And so' (Shubin began humming), 'my greetings to Marya Petrovna! or rather,' he added, 'not Marya Petrovna, but it's all the same! Voo me compreny.'

Bersenyev got up and stood with his chin leaning on his clasped hands. 'What is there to laugh at?' he said, without looking at his companion, 'why should you scoff? Yes, you are right: love is a grand word, a grand feeling.... But what sort of love do you mean?'

Shubin too, got up. 'What sort? What you like, so long as it's there. I will confess to you that I don't believe in the existence of different kinds of love. If you are in love——'

'With your whole heart,' put in Bersenyev.

'Well, of course, that's an understood thing; the heart's not an apple; you can't divide it. If you're in love, you're justified. And I wasn't thinking of scoffing. My heart's as soft at this moment as if it had been melted.... I only wanted to explain why nature has the effect on us you spoke of. It's because she arouses in us a need for love, and is not capable of satisfying it. Nature is gently driving us to other living embraces, but we don't understand, and expect something from nature herself. Ah, Andrei, Andrei, this sun, this sky is beautiful, everything around us is beautiful, still you are sad; but if, at this instant, you were holding the hand of a woman you loved, if that hand and the whole woman were yours, if you were even seeing with her eyes, feeling not your own isolated emotion, but her emotion—nature would not make you melancholy or restless then, and you would not be observing nature's beauty; nature herself would be full of joy and praise; she would be re-echoing your hymn, because then you would have given her—dumb nature—speech!'

Shubin leaped on to his feet and walked twice up and down, but Bersenyev bent his head, and his face was overcast by a faint flush.

'I don't altogether agree with you,' he began: 'nature does not always urge us... towards love.' (He could not at once pronounce the word.) 'Nature threatens us, too; she reminds us of dreadful... yes, insoluble mysteries. Is she not destined to swallow us up, is she not swallowing us up unceasingly? She holds life and death as well; and death speaks in her as loudly as life.'

'In love, too, there is both life and death,' interposed Shubin.

'And then,' Bersenyev went on: 'when I, for example, stand in the spring in the forest, in a green glade, when I can fancy the romantic notes of Oberon's fairy horn' (Bersenyev was a little ashamed when he had spoken these words)—'is that, too——'

'The thirst for love, the thirst for happiness, nothing more!' broke in Shubin. 'I, too, know those notes, I know the languor and the expectation which come upon the soul in the forest's shade, in its deep recesses, or at evening in the open fields when the sun sets and the river mist rises behind the bushes. But forest, and river, and fields, and sky, every cloud and every blade of grass sets me expecting, hoping for happiness, I feel the approach, I hear the voice of happiness calling in everything. 'God of my worship, bright and gay!' That was how I tried to begin my sole poem; you must own it's a splendid first line, but I could never produce a second. Happiness! happiness! as long as life is not over, as long as we have the use of all our limbs, as long as we are going up, not down, hill! Damn it all!' pursued Shubin with sudden vehemence, 'we are young, and neither fools nor monsters; we will conquer happiness for ourselves!'

He shook his curls, and turned a confident almost challenging glance upwards to the sky. Bersenyev raised his eyes and looked at him.

'Is there nothing higher than happiness?' he commented softly.

'And what, for instance?' asked Shubin, stopping short.

'Why, for instance, you and I are, as you say, young; we are good men, let us suppose; each of us desires happiness for himself.... But is that word, happiness, one that could unite us, set us both on fire, and make us clasp each other's hands? Isn't that word an egoistic one; I mean, isn't it a source of disunion?'

'Do you know words, then, that unite men?'

'Yes; and they are not few in number; and you know them, too.'

'Eh? What words?'

'Well, even Art—since you are an artist—Country, Science, Freedom, Justice.'

'And what of love?' asked Shubin.

'Love, too, is a word that unites; but not the love you are eager for now; the love which is not enjoyment, the love which is self-sacrifice.'

Shubin frowned.

'That's all very well for Germans; I want to love for myself; I want to be first.'

'To be first,' repeated Bersenyev. 'But it seems to me that to put one's-self in the second place is the whole significance of our life.'

'If all men were to act as you advise,' commented Shubin with a plaintive expression, 'none on earth would eat pine-apples; every one would be offering them to other people.'

'That's as much as to say, pine-apples are not necessary; but you need not be alarmed; there will always be plenty of people who like them enough to take the bread out of other men's mouths to get them.'

Both friends were silent a little.

'I met Insarov again the other day,' began Bersenyev. 'I invited him to stay with me; I really must introduce him to you—and to the Stahovs.'

'Who is Insarov? Ah, to be sure, isn't it that Servian or Bulgarian you were telling me about? The patriot? Now isn't it he who's at the bottom of all these philosophical ideas?'

'Perhaps.'

'Is he an exceptional individual?'

'Yes.'

'Clever? Talented?'

'Clever—talented—I don't know, I don't think so.'

'Not? Then, what is there remarkable in him?'

'You shall see. But now I think it's time to be going. Anna Vassilyevna will be waiting for us, very likely. What's the time?'

'Three o'clock. Let us go. How baking it is! This conversation has set all my blood aflame. There was a moment when you, too,... I am not an artist for nothing; I observe everything. Confess, you are interested in a woman?'

Shubin tried to get a look at Bersenyev's face, but he turned away and walked out of the lime-tree's shade. Shubin went after him, moving his little feet with easy grace. Bersenyev walked clumsily, with his shoulders high and his neck craned forward. Yet, he looked a man of finer breeding than Shubin; more of a gentleman, one might say, if that word had not been so vulgarised among us.

II

The young men went down to the river Moskva and walked along its bank. There was a breath of freshness from the water, and the soft plash of tiny waves caressed the ear.

'I would have another bathe,' said Shubin, 'only I'm afraid of being late. Look at the river; it seems to beckon us. The ancient Greeks would have beheld a nymph in it. But we are not Greeks, O nymph! we are thick-skinned Scythians.'

'We have roussalkas,' observed Bersenyev.

'Get along with your roussalkas! What's the use to me—a sculptor—of those children of a cold, terror-stricken fancy, those shapes begotten in the stifling hut, in the dark of winter nights? I want light, space.... Good God, when shall I go to Italy? When——'

'To Little Russia, I suppose you mean?'

'For shame, Andrei Petrovitch, to reproach me for an act of unpremeditated folly, which I have repented bitterly enough without that. Oh, of course, I behaved like a fool; Anna Vassilyevna most kindly gave me the money