Ivanov

is no plan one can think of.⁠ ⁠… There’s nothing to sell.⁠ ⁠… Lebedyev You might go to Milbach and ask him; he owes you sixteen thousand, you know. Ivanov waves his hand hopelessly. Lebedyev I tell you what, Nikolasha.⁠ ⁠… I know you will begin scolding, but⁠ ⁠… do a favour to an old drunkard. Between friends.⁠ ⁠… Look upon me as a friend.⁠ ⁠… We have both been students, liberals.⁠ ⁠… We have common ideas and interests.⁠ ⁠… We both studied in Moscow.⁠ ⁠… Alma mater⁠ ⁠… takes out his pocketbook. Here I’ve got a secret hoard; no one at home knows of it. Let me lend it to you⁠ ⁠… takes out money and lays it on the table. Drop your pride and look at it as a friend.⁠ ⁠… I would take it from you⁠—on my honour, I would a pause. Here it is, on the table, eleven hundred. You go to her today and give it with your own hands.⁠ ⁠… Take it, Zinaida Savishna, and may it choke you! Only mind you don’t make a sign that it comes from me, God preserve you! or I shall get it hot from old Gooseberry Jam looks into Ivanov’s face. Oh, all right, never mind! Hastily takes the money from the table and puts it into his pocket. Never mind! I was joking.⁠ ⁠… Forgive me, for Christ’s sake! A pause. You are sick at heart? Ivanov makes a gesture of despair. Lebedyev Yes, it is a business⁠ ⁠… sighs. A time of woe and tribulation has come for you. A man is like a samovar, old boy. It is not always in the cool on the shelf⁠—there are times when they put hot coals into it.⁠ ⁠… The comparison is not worth much, but I can’t think of anything better⁠ ⁠… sighs. Troubles strengthen the spirit. I am not sorry for you, Nikolasha⁠—you’ll get out of your difficulties, things will come right; but I feel vexed and offended with people.⁠ ⁠… I should like to know where these scandals come from! There are such stories going about you all over the district that you might get a call from the public prosecutor any day.⁠ ⁠… You are a murderer and a bloodsucker and a robber.⁠ ⁠… Ivanov That doesn’t matter; what does matter is that my head aches. Lebedyev That’s all from thinking too much. Ivanov I don’t think at all. Lebedyev You just snap your fingers at everything, Nikolasha, and come over to us. Sasha is fond of you; she understands you and appreciates you. She is a good, fine creature, Nikolasha. She takes neither after father nor mother, but after some passing stranger.⁠ ⁠… Sometimes I look at her and can’t believe that a bottle-nosed old drunkard like me can have such a treasure. Come over; you can talk about intellectual subjects with her, and it will be a change for you. She has a faithful, sincere nature⁠ ⁠… a pause. Ivanov Pasha, my dear soul, leave me alone. Lebedyev I understand, I understand⁠ ⁠… looks hurriedly at his watch. I understand kisses Ivanov. Goodbye. I’ve got to go to the dedication of a school goes to the door and stops. She is a clever girl.⁠ ⁠… Yesterday she and I were talking about gossip laughs. And she made an epigram: “Father,” she said, “glowworms shine at night simply so that the night birds may see and devour them more easily; and good people exist to provide food for gossip and slander.” What do you say to that? A genius! A George Sand! Ivanov Pasha! Stops him. What is the matter with me? Lebedyev I wanted to ask you that myself, but, to tell you the truth, I did not like to. I don’t know, dear boy! On the one hand, it seemed to me that you were crushed by misfortunes of all sorts, and on the other hand, I know you are not the sort to⁠ ⁠… You are not the one to be mastered by trouble. There is something else in it, Nikolasha, but what it is I don’t know. Ivanov I don’t know myself. I fancy it is either⁠ ⁠… but no! A pause. You see, what I meant to say was this. I had a workman called Semyon⁠—you remember him. One day at threshing time he wanted to show the girls how strong he was, put two sacks of rye on his back, and ruptured himself. He died soon after. It seems to me that I have ruptured myself, too. The high-school, university, then managing my estate, plans, schools.⁠ ⁠… My beliefs were not like other people’s, my marriage was not like other people’s. I was enthusiastic, I took risks, threw away my money right and left, as you know. I have had more happiness and more misery than anyone in the whole district. All this was like those sacks for me, Pasha.⁠ ⁠… I took a burden on my back, and my back was broken. At twenty we are heroes⁠—we tackle anything, we can do anything; and at thirty we are already exhausted and good for nothing. How do you explain that liability to exhaustion, tell me? But perhaps it’s not that, though.⁠ ⁠… That’s not it, that’s not it!⁠ ⁠… Go along, Pasha, God bless you; I have been boring you. Lebedyev Eagerly. You know what it is, old boy? It’s your environment has destroyed you. Ivanov Oh, that’s stupid, Pasha, and stale. Run along! Lebedyev Yes, it is certainly stupid. I can see for myself now it is stupid. I am going! I am going! Goes out. Ivanov Alone. I am a bad, abject, worthless man. One has to be as abject, broken and shattered as Pasha to like and respect me. How I despise myself, my God! How I hate my voice, my step, my hands, these clothes, my thoughts! Isn’t it absurd, isn’t it mortifying? It’s not a year since I was strong and well, I was inexhaustible, full of warmth and confidence, I worked with these same hands, I could speak so as to move even the