‘‘Don’t bother, I’ll come in the window...’
Laevsky climbed through the window and, going up to Samoilenko, seized him by the hand.
‘‘Alexander Davidych,’’ he said in a trembling voice, ‘‘save me! I beseech you, I adjure you, understand me! My situation is tormenting. If it goes on for another day or two, I’ll strangle myself like ... like a dog!’’
‘Wait ... What exactly are you referring to?’’
‘‘Light a candle.’’
‘Ho-hum ...’ sighed Samoilenko, lighting a candle. ‘‘My God, my God... It’s already past one o’clock, brother.’’
‘‘Forgive me, but I can’t stay at home,’’ said Laevsky, feeling greatly relieved by the light and Samoilenko’s presence. ‘‘You, Alexander Davidych, are my best and only friend... All my hope lies in you. Whether you want to or not, for God’s sake, help me out. I must leave here at all costs. Lend me some money!’’
‘‘Oh, my God, my God!...’ Samoilenko sighed, scratching himself. ‘‘I’m falling asleep and I hear a whistle—a steamer has come—and then you... How much do you need?’’
‘‘At least three hundred roubles. I should leave her a hundred, and I’ll need two hundred for my trip... I already owe you about four hundred, but I’ll send you all of it ... all of it...’
Samoilenko took hold of both his side-whiskers with one hand, stood straddle-legged, and pondered.
‘So ...’ he murmured, reflecting. ‘‘Three hundred... Yes... But I haven’t got that much. I’ll have to borrow it from somebody.’’
‘‘Borrow it, for God’s sake!’’ said Laevsky, seeing by Samoilenko’s face that he wanted to give him the money and was sure to do it. ‘‘Borrow it, and I’ll be sure to pay it back. I’ll send it from Petersburg as soon as I get there. Don’t worry about that. Look, Sasha,’’ he said, reviving, ‘‘let’s have some wine!’’
‘Wine... That’s possible.’’
They both went to the dining room.
‘‘And what about Nadezhda Fyodorovna?’’ asked Samoilenko, setting three bottles and a plate of peaches on the table. ‘‘Can she be staying on?’’
‘‘I’ll arrange it all, I’ll arrange it all ...’ said Laevsky, feeling an unexpected surge of joy. ‘‘I’ll send her money afterwards, and she’ll come to me... And then we’ll clarify our relations. To your health, friend.’’
‘‘Wait,’’ said Samoilenko. ‘‘Drink this one first... It’s from my vineyard. This bottle is from Navaridze’s vineyard, and this one from Akhatulov’s... Try all three and tell me frankly... Mine seems to be a bit acidic. Eh? Don’t you find?’’
‘‘Yes. You’ve really comforted me, Alexander Davidych. Thank you... I’ve revived.’’
‘‘A bit acidic?’’
‘‘Devil knows, I don’t know. But you’re a splendid, wonderful man!’’
Looking at his pale, agitated, kindly face, Samoilenko remembered von Koren’s opinion that such people should be destroyed, and Laevsky seemed to him a weak, defenseless child whom anyone could offend and destroy.
‘‘And when you go, make peace with your mother,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s not nice.’’
‘‘Yes, yes, without fail.’’
They were silent for a while. When they had drunk the first bottle, Samoilenko said:
‘‘Make peace with von Koren as well. You’re both most excellent and intelligent people, but you stare at each other like two wolves.’’
‘‘Yes, he’s a most excellent and intelligent man,’’ agreed Laevsky, ready now to praise and forgive everybody. ‘‘He’s a remarkable man, but it’s impossible for me to be friends with him. No! Our natures are too different. I’m sluggish, weak, submissive by nature; I might offer him my hand at a good moment, but he’d turn away from me ... with scorn.’’
Laevsky sipped some wine, paced from corner to corner, and, stopping in the middle of the room, went on:
‘‘I understand von Koren very well. He’s firm, strong, despotic by nature. You’ve heard him talking constantly about an expedition, and they’re not empty words. He needs the desert, a moonlit night; around him in tents and under the open sky sleep his hungry and sick Cossacks, guides, porters, a doctor, a priest, worn out by the difficult marches, and he alone doesn’t sleep and, like Stanley,22 sits in his folding chair and feels himself the king of the desert and master of these people. He walks, and walks, and walks somewhere, his people groan and die one after the other, but he walks and walks, and in the end dies himself, and still remains the despot and king of the desert, because the cross on his grave can be seen by caravans from thirty or forty miles away, and it reigns over the desert. I’m sorry the man is not in military service. He’d make an excellent, brilliant general. He’d know how to drown his cavalry in the river and make bridges from the corpses, and such boldness is more necessary in war than any fortifications or tactics. Oh, I understand him very well! Tell me, why does he eat himself up here? What does he need here?’’
‘‘He’s studying marine fauna.’’
‘‘No. No, brother, no!’’ sighed Laevsky. ‘‘I was told by a scientist traveling on the steamer that the Black Sea is poor in fauna, and that organic life is impossible in the depths of it owing to the abundance of hydrogen sulfate. All serious zoologists work at biological stations in Naples or Villefranche. But von Koren is independent and stubborn: he works on the Black Sea because nobody works here; he’s broken with the university, doesn’t want to know any scientists and colleagues, because he’s first of all a despot and only then a zoologist. And you’ll see, something great will come of him. He’s already dreaming now that when he returns from the expedition, he’ll smoke out the intrigue and mediocrity in our universities and tie the scientists in knots. Despotism is as strong in science as in war. And he’s living for the second summer in this stinking little town, because it’s better to be first in a village than second in a city.23 Here he’s a king and an eagle; he’s got all the inhabitants under his thumb and oppresses them with his authority. He’s taken everybody in hand, he interferes in other people’s affairs, he wants to be in on everything, and everybody’s afraid of him. I’m slipping out from under his paw, he senses it, and he hates
