“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 pineapples; everyone would be offering them to other people.”
“That’s as much as to say, pineapples 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 Serbian 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 rusalkas,” observed Bersenyev.
“Get along with your rusalkas! 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 for an expedition to Italy, and I went off to the Little Russians to eat dumplings and—”
“Don’t let me have the rest, please,” interposed Bersenyev.
“Yet still, I will say, the money was not spent in vain. I saw there such types, especially of women. … Of course, I know; there is no salvation to be found outside of Italy!”
“You will go to Italy,” said Bersenyev, without turning towards him, “and will do nothing. You will always be pluming your wings and never take flight. We know you!”
“Stavasser has taken flight. … And he’s not the only one. If I don’t fly, it will prove that I’m a sea penguin, and have no wings. I am stifled here, I want to be in Italy,” pursued Shubin, “there is sunshine, there is beauty.”
A young girl in a large straw hat, with a pink parasol on her shoulder, came into sight at that instant, in the little path along which the friends were walking.
“But what do I see? Even here, there is beauty—coming to meet us! A humble artist’s compliments to the enchanting Zoya!” Shubin cried at once, with a theatrical flourish of his hat.
The young girl to whom this exclamation referred, stopped, threatening him with her finger, and, waiting for the two friends to come up to her, she said in a ringing voice:
“Why is it, gentlemen, you don’t come in to dinner? It is on the table.”
“What do I hear?” said Shubin, throwing his arms up. “Can it be that you, bewitching Zoya, faced such heat to come and look for us? Dare I think that is the meaning of your words? Tell me, can it be so? Or no, do not utter that word; I shall die of regret on the spot.”
“Oh, do leave off, Pavel Yakovlitch,” replied the young girl with some annoyance. “Why will you never talk to me seriously? I shall be angry,” she added with a little coquettish grimace, and she pouted.
“You will not be angry with me, ideal Zoya Nikitishna; you would not drive me to the dark depths of hopeless despair. And I can’t talk to you seriously, because I’m not a serious person.”
The young girl shrugged her shoulders, and turned to Bersenyev.
“There, he’s always like that; he treats me like a child; and I am eighteen. I am grown-up now.”
“O Lord!” groaned Shubin, rolling his eyes upwards; and Bersenyev smiled quietly.
The girl stamped
