My design of relating the case as it was, and not as it would have been if I had followed my inclinations, also causes me another unpleasantness. I am very much dissatisfied because Marya Alekséyevna is represented in a ridiculous way with her conceptions of Lopukhóf’s bride as he described her, with her fantastic guessing about the contents of the books which Lopukhóf gave Viérotchka, with her reasoning about Philippe Egalité trying to convert folks to the faith of the Pope, and her ideas of the works written by King Louis XIV. Everyone is liable to error; mistakes may be stupid if a man judges of matters which are foreign to his experience; but it would be unjust to conclude from these stupid blunders made by Marya Alekséyevna that her disposition to Lopukhóf was founded entirely on these blunders; not at all, not for a moment would any fantastic ideas of a rich bride or the goodness of Philippe Egalité have obscured her common sense, if in Lopukhóf’s actual words and actions had anything suspicious been noticeable. But in point of fact, he behaved himself in such a way that, according to Marya Alekséyevna’s opinion, only a man after her own heart could behave himself; now here was a brave young man, who did not allow his eyes to gaze impudently at a very pretty young girl; he did not pay her ambiguous attentions, he was always willing to play cards with Marya Alekséyevna, he never said that he would rather sit with Viéra Pavlovna, he discussed matters in a spirit that seemed to Marya Alekséyevna in accordance with her own spirit; like her, he said that everything in the world is done for self-interest, that when a cheat cheats (plut plutŭyet), there is no need of getting excited and crying out about the principles of honesty which such a cheat is bound to observe, that a cheat is not a cheat without good reason, that he was made such by his environment, that not to be a cheat—leaving aside the impossibility of not being a cheat—would have been stupid, that is, simply foolish on his part. Yes, Marya Alekséyevna was right, when she found a resemblance between her and Lopukhóf.
I appreciate how deeply Lopukhóf is compromised in the eyes of the civilized public by the sympathy shown by Marya Alekséyevna in his way of thinking. But I do not want to flatter anyone, and I don’t conceal this circumstance, though it is so injurious to Lopukhóf’s reputation, although I confessed that it was in my power to conceal Lopukhóf’s relations with the Rozalsky family. I will say even more; I myself will even undertake to explain that he even actually deserved Marya Alekséyevna’s good will.
In point of fact, it appears from the conversation between Lopukhóf and Viérotchka, that the style of his thinking would far more easily seem good to people of Marya Alekséyevna’s stamp, than to eloquent partisans of various beautiful ideas. Lopukhóf saw things in exactly the same light as they appear to the great mass of the human race, with the exception of the partisans of beautiful ideas. If Marya Alekséyevna could repeat with satisfaction what she herself had heard of Lopukhóf’s advice to Viérotchka in regard to Storeshnikof’s offer, he likewise would take satisfaction in adding right to her drunken confession to Viérotchka. The resemblance between their conceptions was so striking, that enlightened and noble novelists, journalists, and other instructors of our public, would long ago have declared that people of Lopukhóf’s stamp differ in no respect from people of Marya Alekséyevna’s stamp. If such enlightened and noble writers so understand Lopukhóf’s stamp, could we really condemn Marya Alekséyevna because she could find in Lopukhóf nothing but what our best writers, teachers, and philosophers find in people of his stamp?
Of course, if Marya Alekséyevna had known half of what these writers knew, she would have had sufficient mind to understand that Lopukhóf is bad company for her. But aside from the fact that she was an uneducated woman, she has still another excuse for mistake. Lopukhóf did not give her the full benefit of his ideas. He was a propagandist, but not such an one as the lovers of fine ideas who are always anxious to give Marya Alekséyevnas the benefit of the noble conceptions by which they themselves are enlightened. He had enough good sense not to try to straighten a fifty-year-old tree. They both accepted facts in the same way, and so discussed them. Like a man with a theoretical education, he could draw from facts such conclusions as were impossible to Marya Alekséyevna and her similars, who do not know anything beyond personal everyday cares and current aphorisms of popular wisdom—proverbs, sayings, and the folklore which is old, archaic, and even stale. But they could never reach his conclusions. If, for instance, he had begun to explain what he meant by the word “self-interest,” which he used when talking with Viérotchka, Marya Alekséyevna would have made a grimace, seeing that self-interest, as he understood it, was not the same as self-interest as she understood it; but Lopukhóf did not explain this to Marya Alekséyevna, and neither was there any explanation of it in his talk with Viérotchka, because Viérotchka knew the meaning of the word as she had seen it used in those books which started the conversation. Of course it is also true that while saying you are right to Marya Alekséyevna’s drunken confession, Lopukhóf would have added to the word “right” (prava) these words: “According to your own confession, Marya Alekséyevna,
