“And you’re always lying down,” I say, after pausing briefly to rest. “That’s unhealthy. You ought to find something to do!”
“Eh?”
“I said, you ought to find something to do.”
“What? A woman can only be a menial worker or an actress.”
“Well, then? If you can’t be a worker, be an actress.”
Silence.
“Why don’t you get married?” I say half jokingly.
“There’s nobody to marry. And no reason to.”
“You can’t live like this.”
“Without a husband? A lot it matters! There are men all over, if anybody’s interested.”
“That’s not nice, Katya.”
“What’s not nice?”
“What you just said.”
Noticing that I’m upset, and wishing to smooth over the bad impression, Katya says:
“Come. Over here. Look.”
She leads me to a small, very cozy room and says, pointing to the writing table:
“Look … I’ve made it ready for you. You can work here. Come every day and bring your work. At home they only bother you. Will you work here? Do you want to?”
To avoid upsetting her by saying no, I reply that I will work in her place and that I like the room very much. Then the two of us sit down in this cozy room and begin to talk.
The warmth, the cozy atmosphere, and the presence of a sympathetic person now arouse in me not a feeling of contentment, as before, but a strong urge to complain and grumble. For some reason it seems to me that if I murmur and complain a bit I’ll feel better.
“Things are bad, my dear!” I begin with a sigh. “Very bad …”
“What’s wrong?”
“The thing is this, my friend. The best and most sacred right of kings is the right to show mercy. And I always felt myself a king, because I made boundless use of that right. I never judged, I was tolerant, I willingly forgave everybody right and left. Where others protested and were indignant, I merely advised and persuaded. All my life I tried only to make my company bearable for my family, students, colleagues, and servants. And this attitude of mine towards people, I know, was an education to all those around me. But now I’m no longer a king. Something is going on inside me that is fit only for slaves: spiteful thoughts wander through my head day and night, and feelings such as I’ve never known before are nesting in my soul. I hate and despise, I feel indignant, outraged, afraid. I’ve become excessively severe, demanding, irritable, ungracious, suspicious. Even something that before would have given me an occasion for one more quip and a good-natured laugh, now produces a heavy feeling in me. My logic has also changed in me: before I only despised money, now I harbor a spiteful feeling not for money but for the rich, as if they were to blame; before I hated violence and tyranny, but now I hate the people who use violence, as if they alone were to blame and not all of us, because we’re unable to educate each other. What does it mean? If my new thoughts and feelings proceed from a change of convictions, where could that change have come from? Has the world become worse and I better, or was I blind and indifferent before? And if this change has proceeded from a general decline of physical and mental powers—I’m sick and losing weight every day—then my situation is pathetic: it means that my new thoughts are abnormal, unhealthy, that I should be ashamed of them and consider them worthless …”
“Sickness has nothing to do with it,” Katya interrupts me. “It’s simply that your eyes have been opened, that’s all. You’ve seen something that for some reason you didn’t want to notice before. In my opinion, you must first of all break with your family and leave.”
“What you’re saying is absurd.”
“You don’t love them, so why this duplicity? And is that a family? Nonentities! They could die today, and tomorrow nobody would notice they were gone.”
Katya despises my wife and daughter as much as they hate her. In our day one can hardly talk of people’s right to despise each other. But if one takes Katya’s point of view and acknowledges that such a right exists, one can see that after all she has the same right to despise my wife and Liza as they have to hate her.
“Nonentities!” she repeats. “Did you have dinner today? How is it they didn’t forget to call you to the dining room? How is it they still remember your existence?”
“Katya,” I say sternly, “I ask you to be quiet.”
“And do you think I enjoy talking about them? I’d be glad not to know them at all. Listen to me, my dear: drop everything and leave. Go abroad. The sooner the better.”
“What nonsense! And the university?”
“The university, too. What is it to you? There’s no sense in it anyway. You’ve been lecturing for thirty years now, and where are your disciples? Have you produced many famous scientists? Count them up! And to multiply the number of doctors who exploit ignorance and make hundreds of thousands, there’s no need to be a good and talented man. You’re superfluous.”
“My God, how sharp you are!” I say, horrified. “How sharp you are! Be quiet, or I’ll leave! I don’t know how to reply to your sharpness!”
The maid comes in and invites us to have tea. At the samovar our conversation changes, thank God. Since I’ve already complained, I want to give free rein to my other old man’s weakness— reminiscence. I tell Katya about my
