Nikolai Vasilievich did not shout, as Stanitski, who knew his master intimately, had, no doubt, expected him to do. He spoke quietly and even sadly; and it was the sadness of his speech that penetrated Stanitski’s Slavic nature to the heart. “How could you have cheated me like that, Ivan Sergeiech—me who have trusted you?”
And Stanitski became emotional. “Nikolai Vasilievich!” he exclaimed with his hands joined together and the whites of his eyes turned heavenward. “Nikolai Vasilievich! God in Heaven knows I have not been helping myself to your money, as you seem to think, recklessly. But since I took a little—and I have a wife, children, dependents—I had to do what the house-agent told me. I was in his hands, at the mercy of a blackguard and a robber. Nikolai Vasilievich: I often felt I wanted to warn you of this rascal. But I was in his hands … since I took myself. But I took in measure, Nikolai Vasilievich, conscientiously, with my eyes on God. …”
The old man sobbed bitter tears. He felt that fate had dealt him a cruel blow, unjustifiably cruel, in return for his moderation.
What could be done to him? Baron Wunderhausen, who now, as Sonia’s husband, lived with the family, suggested handing the man over to the Bolshevik militia. But Nikolai Vasilievich only waved his hand. I think it was the family aspect of the old man’s position that penetrated Nikolai Vasilievich to the heart. He sat there at his desk, brooding darkly, while Stanitski, gently, like a cat, felt his way out of the flat.
Fanny Ivanovna sighed conspicuously.
“An optimistic gentleman—Stanitski,” I remarked. “What a belief in the kindliness of things! What a claim on the favour of Providence!”
“And, as it happens, he is not far wrong in his calculations,” said the Baron with a bitterness which showed that he, as son-in-law, was dissatisfied with the management of the family’s finances. “I call this state of things disgraceful.”
“God have mercy upon us!” whispered Fanny Ivanovna, almost ironically.
“An optimist,” I digressed aloud, “is a fool, since he can’t see what awaits him—disillusionment. But he is wise without knowing it, since, however bad the present, he remains an optimist as to the future, and so his present seems never quite so bad to him as it really is.”
“Say it again,” breathed Nina.
“A fool,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “is an optimist. He is optimistic about himself, optimistic about his folly. I’m an optimist!”
He stood up, his hands in his trouser pockets, and gazed at the window. Twilight was falling swiftly. Nina, perched up on the sofa, sat silent, her head bent.
“What’s the good of being miserable?” I said to her.
“As though I deliberately chose to be miserable!” To console herself, she took an apple.
“Optimists that we are!” sighed Fanny Ivanovna.
“Warranting considerable pessimism,” supplied the Baron.
“It is easier to hope,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “and be disappointed, it is easier to hope knowing that one will be disappointed, than not hope at all.”
“Why don’t the writers—the novelists—why don’t they write about this, this real life,” said Fanny Ivanovna, “this real drama of life, rather than their neat, reasoned, reasonable and—oh! so unconvincing novels?”
“This philosophizing won’t help us,” jeered Nikolai Vasilievich mildly. “We ought to do things. I want to do things. This moment I am teeming over with energy. I could do and settle things today, square up our affairs, and start life afresh. … But. …”
The Baron looked at him. “Well?”
“But—” A gesture at the window indicated the obstacle. “What can I do with this? What can anybody do? All is tumbling, going to ruin. In a month or so all business will stop, works will close down. The rouble will be valueless. There will be nothing. …”
“Now don’t lose courage, Nikolai,” said Fanny Ivanovna hopefully. “We shall pull through; somehow we shall; and then on the other side of the grave we shall be safe.”
“Her most optimistic moment in life!” jeered Nikolai Vasilievich.
“It’s a surprising thing what the human soul will stand, Andrei Andreiech,” she said. “I can venture only this explanation; it is habit. You see, the cup is ever filled to the brim, but—lo! the miracle! the cup expands. No trouble. None! … And here we are.”
“Life gets you,” came from the window; “sooner or later it gets you all the same.”
“I don’t know what it’s for, why, or who wants it. It seems so unnecessary, useless, even silly. And yet I cannot think that it’s all in vain. There must be … perhaps a larger pattern somewhere in which all these futilities, these shifting incongruities are somehow reconciled. But shall we know? Shall we ever know the reason?”
“Philosophy!” jeered Nikolai Vasilievich mildly.
“Perhaps,” I said, “when we awaken on the other side of death and ask to be told the reason, they will shrug their shoulders and will say, ‘We don’t know. It is beyond us. Do you not know?’ … And we shall never know. Never. …”
“How awfully funnily your mouth moves when you speak,” said Nina, who had been listening to me attentively.
“Frightfully!”
“There is no proof,” said Baron Wunderhausen, “that death is the end. But there is no proof, as yet, that death is not the end.”
“So there is no proof of anything?” asked Nikolai Vasilievich.
“No.”
“Thank you,” said Fanny Ivanovna.
The Baron bowed.
Then Nikolai Vasilievich passed into the hall and put his coat on. As it was time for me to go, we went out together. I remember there was something hopeless about that night, a sense of dread about the political and economic chaos, that seemed to harmonize with Nikolai Vasilievich’s state of mind. I think it may be that he found a kind of ghastly pleasure in the thought that if he was miserable, if destitution stared him in the face, the whole world also seemed to be tumbling about him into decay and ruin. As we crossed the Palace Square we were challenged by a soldier who had emerged from behind a pile of firewood dumped before the Winter Palace. He stepped forward with fixed bayonet and demanded money,
