“Well, that’s not the way I look at it,” retorted Kuzma. “I, brother—how shall I put it to you?—I’m a strange Russian type.”
“I’m a Russian man myself, bear that in mind,” interposed Tikhon Ilitch.
“But another sort. I don’t mean to say that I’m better than you, but—I’m different. Now here are you, I see, priding yourself on being a Russian, while I, brother, okh! am very far from being a Slavophil! It’s not proper to jabber much, but one thing I will say: for God’s sake, don’t brag of being a Russian! We’re an uncivilized people and an extremely unreliable one—neither candle for God nor oven-fork for the devil. But we will discuss this as time goes on.”
Tikhon Ilitch contracted his brows, drummed on the table with his fingers. “That’s right, probably,” he said, and slowly filled his glass. “We’re a savage lot. A crackbrained race.”
“Well, and that’s precisely the point. I have, I may say, roamed about the world a good bit. Well, and what then? Absolutely nowhere have I seen more tiresome and lazy types. And those who are not lazy”—here Kuzma shot a sidelong look at his brother—“have no sense at all. They toil and strive and acquire a nest for themselves; but where’s the sense in it, after all?”
“What do you mean by that? What’s sense?” asked Tikhon Ilitch.
“Just what I say. One must use sense in making one’s nest. I’ll weave me a nest, says the man, and then I’ll live as a man should. In this way and in that.”
Here Kuzma tapped his breast and his brow with his finger.
Tikhon Ilitch poured himself out another glass of liquor. Kuzma, having donned a silver-framed pair of eyeglasses, sipped the boiling-hot amber fluid from his saucer. Tikhon Ilitch gazed at him with beaming eyes; and after turning something over in his mind, he said: “Evidently, brother, that sort of thing is not for the likes of us. If you live in the country, sup your coarse cabbage-soup and wear wretched bast-shoes. Do as your neighbours do!”
“Bast-shoes!” retorted Kuzma tartly. “We’ve been wearing them a couple of thousand years, brother—the thrice-accursed things! For two thousand years we’ve been living with our mouths agape. We’re doing the devil’s work. And who is to blame? What I have to say about it is this: ’tis high time to get ashamed of casting shame for everything on our neighbours—blaming our neighbours instead of ourselves! The Tatars oppressed us, you see! We’re a young nation, you see! Just as if, over there in Europe, all sorts of Mongols didn’t oppress folks a lot, too! As if the Germans were any older than we are! Well, anyhow, that’s a special subject.”
“Correct!” said Tikhon Ilitch. “Come on, we’d better get down to business.”
Kuzma turned his empty glass upside down on the saucer, lighted a cigarette, and resumed his exposition.
“I don’t go to church.”
“That signifies that you are a molokan?”9 asked Tikhon Ilitch, and said to himself: “I’m lost! Evidently, I must get rid of Durnovka!”
“A sort of molokan,” grinned Kuzma. “And do you go to church? If it weren’t for fear and necessity, one would forget all about it.”
“Well, I’m not the first, neither am I the last,” retorted Tikhon Ilitch, again contracting his brows in a scowl. “We are all sinners. But ’tis stated, you know: One sigh buys forgiveness for everything.”
Kuzma shook his head.
“You’re saying the usual things!” he remarked, severely. “But if you will only pause and reflect, how can that be so? You’ve been living on and on pig-fashion all your life, and you utter a sigh—and everything is wiped out without leaving a trace! Is there any sense in that, or not?”
The conversation was becoming painful. “That’s correct,” Tikhon Ilitch said to himself, as he stared at the table with flashing eyes. But, as always, he wanted to dodge thought, and discussion about God and about life; and he said the first thing that came to the tip of his tongue: “I’d be glad enough to go to Paradise, but my sins won’t let me.”
“There, there, there!” Kuzma caught him up, tapping the table with his fingernail. “The very thing we love the best, our most pernicious characteristic, is precisely that: words are one thing, deeds are quite another! ’Tis the genuine Russian tune, brother: I live disgustingly, pig-fashion, but nevertheless I am living, and I shall continue to live, pig-fashion! You’re a type, brother! A type!—Well, now talk business.”
The pealing of the bells had ceased, the canary had quieted down. People had assembled in the eating-house, and conversation was increasing at the little tables. A waiter opened a window, and chatter from the bazaar also became audible. Somewhere in a shop a quail was uttering his call, very clearly and melodiously. And while the business talk was in progress Kuzma kept listening to it, and from time to time interposed, “That’s clever!” in an undertone. And when all had been said he slapped the table with the palm of his hand and said energetically: “Well, all right, so be it—don’t let’s discuss it!” and thrusting his hand into the side pocket of his short coat, he drew forth a regular heap of papers and paper scraps, sorted out from among them a small book in a grey-marbled binding, and laid it in front of his brother. “There!” said he. “I yield to your request and to my own weakness. ’Tis a wretched little book, casual verses, written long ago. But ’tis done, and it cannot be helped. Here, take it and put it out of sight.”
And once more Tikhon Ilitch, who had already become extremely red in the face from the vodka, was agitated by the consciousness that his brother was an author; that upon that grey-marbled cover was printed: “Poems by K. I. Krasoff.” He turned the book about in his hands, and
