“It would be a very striking thing if there should spring up at last a class of women doctors. They would be very useful for all women. It is much easier for a woman to talk with a woman than with a man. How much suffering, death, and misfortune would be removed. I must try it.”93
X
Viéra Pavlovna finished her conversation with her husband by putting on her bonnet, and going with him to the hospital to put her nerves to the test, to find if she could bear the sight of blood, or be able to study anatomy. With Kirsánof’s position in the hospital, of course there could be no obstacle to her experiment.
I, without the least sense of shame, have seriously compromised Viéra Pavlovna on the side of sentiment. For example, I have not concealed the fact that she dined every day, and for the most part with good appetite, and, moreover, twice a day drank tea. But I have reached such an occurrence that, in spite of all the shameless degradation of my conceptions, I am overtaken by fear; and I wonder, would it not be better to hide this thing? What will be thought of a woman who gave herself up to medicine? What coarse nerves she must have! What an unfeeling heart! She is not a woman, but a butcher. But, considering that I do not represent the characters of my story as ideals of perfection, I become calmer. Let folks judge as they please about the heartlessness of Viéra Pavlovna’s nature. What business is it of mine? If she is coarse, let her be coarse.
And so I say in cold blood that she found a great difference between idle observation of things and active work in them for her own benefit and the benefit of others.
I remember that when I was a boy, twelve years old, I who had never seen fire was frightened by being wakened by the loud noise of a fire alarm. The whole sky became red and fiery; over all the city, which was a large provincial town, flew great burning cinders. Over all the city there was a great tumult, running to and fro, shrieks. I breathed as though I had been in a fever. Fortunately I succeeded in getting to the fire, availing myself of the chance that all the domestics were in a great state of excitement. The fire was along the shore; that is, simply the bank, because what kind of a shore could there be? The bank was filled with wood and with wooden posts. Such boys as I were taking hold and carrying off things from the burning houses. I joined them. What became of my fear? I worked very energetically till we were told, “That’ll do; the danger is over”; and from that time I understood that if you have any fear of a great fire, you must run to it and work, and you will not fear at all.
Whoever works has no time to fear, or to feel disgust or squeamishness. And so Viéra Pavlovna gave herself up to medicine; and she was one of the first women whom I knew to enter this new field of activity. After this she really began to feel herself a different person. Her thought was, “In a few years I shall actually stand on my feet.” This is a great thought. There can be no full happiness without full independence. Poor women, how few among you have this happiness!
XI
And thus a year passes; and another year will pass, and still another since her marriage to Kirsánof; and thus all of Viéra Pavlovna’s days will pass as they pass now, a year after the wedding, as they have passed since the wedding: and a good many years will pass; and they will all pass in this way unless something extraordinary happens. Who knows what the future will bring forth? But till the time that I am writing these lines nothing extraordinary has happened; and Viéra Pavlovna’s days are passing just as they passed a year or two years after her marriage to Kirsánof.
After this terrible compromising circumstance that Viéra Pavlovna made up her mind to study medicine, and found herself capable of doing so, I can speak without fear of everything else; all that remains cannot injure her so much in the estimation of the public. And I must say that now, on Syérgievskaïa Street as before on Vasilyevsky Island, Viéra Pavlovna’s meals were constituted as follows: tea in the morning, dinner, and tea in the evening. Yes; she has preserved the unpoetical peculiarities of dining every day, and taking tea twice a day, and finds it agreeable; and, generally speaking, she preserves all her unpoetical and ungraceful and far from high-toned peculiarities.
And many other details remain in this new time of contentment just as they were in the former time of contentment; they kept the rule for the division of the rooms into neutral and private; the rule also remained in force that they should not enter each other’s private rooms without permission; and another, that a question should not be repeated if the first time it was met by the words, “Do not ask me.” It was agreed between them, that such an answer best allows no thinking about the question propounded, and that thus it is more speedily forgotten; this agreement was made because they were sure that if it deserved an answer, there would be need of repeating; everything would be explained without the need of asking, and what one keeps silent is surely nothing interesting. All this was left during this new peaceful time, as it used to be in the old peaceful time, only at this peaceful time everything has changed to a certain degree, or rather it
