‘‘An astonishingly magnificent view!’’
After a long night spent in cheerless, useless thoughts, which kept him from sleeping and seemed to increase the sultriness and gloom of the night, Laevsky felt broken and sluggish. Swimming and coffee did not make him any better.
‘‘Let’s continue our conversation, Alexander Davidych,’’ he said. ‘‘I won’t conceal it, I’ll tell you frankly, as a friend: things are bad between Nadezhda Fyodorovna and me, very bad! Excuse me for initiating you into my secrets, but I need to speak it out.’’
Samoilenko, who anticipated what the talk would be about, lowered his eyes and started tapping his fingers on the table.
‘‘I’ve lived with her for two years and fallen out of love...’ Laevsky went on. ‘‘That is, more precisely, I’ve realized that there has never been any love... These two years were a delusion.’’
Laevsky had the habit, during a conversation, of studying his pink palms attentively, biting his nails, or crumpling his cuffs with his fingers. And he was doing the same now.
‘‘I know perfectly well that you can’t help me,’’ he said, ‘‘but I’m talking to you because, for our kind, luckless fellows and superfluous men,3 talk is the only salvation. I should generalize my every act, I should find an explanation and a justification of my absurd life in somebody’s theories, in literary types, in the fact, for instance, that we noblemen are degenerating, and so on... Last night, for instance, I comforted myself by thinking all the time: ah, how right Tolstoy is, how pitilessly right! And that made it easier for me. The fact is, brother, he’s a great writer! Whatever they say.’’
Samoilenko, who had never read Tolstoy and was preparing every day to read him, got embarrassed and said:
‘‘Yes, other writers all write from the imagination, but he writes straight from nature.’’
‘‘My God,’’ sighed Laevsky, ‘‘the degree to which we’re crippled by civilization! I fell in love with a married woman, and she with me... In the beginning it was all kisses, and quiet evenings, and vows, and Spencer, 4 and ideals, and common interests... What a lie! Essentially we were running away from her husband, but we lied to ourselves that we were running away from the emptiness of our intelligentsia life. We pictured our future like this: in the beginning, in the Caucasus, while we acquaint ourselves with the place and the people, I’ll put on my uniform and serve, then, once we’re free to do so, we’ll acquire a piece of land, we’ll labor in the sweat of our brow, start a vineyard, fields, and so on. If it were you or that zoologist friend of yours, von Koren, instead of me, you’d live with Nadezhda Fyodorovna for maybe thirty years and leave your heirs a rich vineyard and three thousand acres of corn, while I felt bankrupt from the first day. The town is unbearably hot, boring, peopleless, and if you go out to the fields, you imagine venomous centipedes, scorpions, and snakes under every bush and stone, and beyond the fields there are mountains and wilderness. Alien people, alien nature, a pathetic culture—all that, brother, is not as easy as strolling along Nevsky5 in a fur coat, arm in arm with Nadezhda Fyodorovna, and dreaming about warm lands. What’s needed here is a fight to the death, and what sort of fighter am I? A pathetic neurasthenic, an idler... From the very first day, I realized that my thoughts about a life of labor and a vineyard weren’t worth a damn. As for love, I must tell you that to live with a woman who has read Spencer and followed you to the ends of the earth is as uninteresting as with any Anfisa or Akulina. The same smell of a hot iron, powder, and medications, the same curling papers every morning, and the same self-delusion...’
‘‘You can’t do without an iron in the household,’’ said Samoilenko, blushing because Laevsky was talking to him so openly about a lady he knew. ‘‘I notice you’re out of sorts today, Vanya. Nadezhda Fyodorovna is a wonderful, educated woman, you’re a man of the greatest intelligence... Of course, you’re not married,’’ said Samoilenko, turning to look at the neighboring tables, ‘‘but that’s not your fault, and besides ... one must be without prejudices and stand on the level of modern ideas. I myself stand for civil marriage, yes... But in my opinion, once you’re together, you must go on till death.’’
‘‘Without love?’’
‘‘I’ll explain to you presently,’’ said Samoilenko. ‘‘Some eight years ago there was an agent here, an old man of the greatest intelligence. And this is what he used to say: the main thing in family life is patience. Do you hear, Vanya? Not love but patience. Love can’t last long. You lived in love for two years, but now evidently your family life has entered the period when, to preserve the balance, so to speak, you must put all your patience to use...’
‘‘You believe your old agent, but for me his advice is meaningless. Your old man could play the hypocrite, he could exercise patience and at the same time look at the unloved person as an object necessary for his exercise, but I haven’t fallen so low yet. If I feel a wish to exercise my patience, I’ll buy myself some dumbbells or a restive horse, but the person I’ll leave in peace.’’
Samoilenko ordered white wine with ice. When they had each drunk a glass, Laevsky suddenly asked:
‘‘Tell me, please, what does softening of the brain mean?’’
‘It’s ... how shall I explain to you ? . . . a sort of illness, when the brains become softer ... thin out, as it were.’’
‘‘Curable?’’
‘‘Yes, if the illness hasn’t been neglected. Cold showers, Spanish fly... Well, something internal.’’
‘So ... So you see what my position is like. Live with her I cannot: it’s beyond my strength. While I’m with you, I philosophize and smile, but at home I completely lose heart. It’s so creepy for me that if I were told, let’s say, that I had to live with her for even one more month, I think I’d put a bullet in my head. And at the same time, it’s impossible to break with her. She’s alone, unable to work, I have no money, and neither does she... What will she do with herself? Who will she go to? I can’t come up with anything... Well, so tell me: what’s to be done?’’
‘Mm-yes ...’ growled Samoilenko, not knowing how to reply. ‘‘Does she love you?’’
‘‘Yes, she loves me to the extent that, at her age and with her temperament, she needs a man. It would be as hard for her to part with me as with powder or curling papers. I’m a necessary component of her boudoir.’’
Samoilenko was embarrassed.
‘‘You’re out of sorts today, Vanya,’’ he said. ‘‘You must have slept badly.’’
‘‘Yes, I did... Generally, brother, I feel lousy. My head’s empty, my heartbeat’s irregular, there’s some sort of weakness ... I’ve got to escape!’’
‘‘Where to?’’
