more objective, the less risk of falling into error. One must look at the root and seek the cause of all causes in each phenomenon. We’ve become weak, gone to seed, fallen finally, our generation consists entirely of neurasthenics and whiners, the only thing we know how to do is talk about being tired and overexhausted, but neither you nor I is to blame for it: we’re too small for the fate of a whole generation to hang upon our will. Here, one must think, there are large, general causes, which, from a biological point of view, have a sound raison d’etre. We are neurasthenics, soured spirits, back-sliders, but maybe that’s needful and useful for the generations that will live after us. Not a single hair falls from our heads without the will of the Heavenly Father—in other words, nothing in nature and the human environment happens just like that. Everything is well grounded and necessary. But if so, why should we be so especially worried and write desperate letters?’’
‘‘That may be so,’’ I said after some reflection. ‘‘I believe that for the coming generations, it will be easier and clearer; they will have our experience at their service. But one wants to live independently of the future generations and not merely for them. Life is given only once, and one would like to live it cheerfully, meaningfully, beautifully. One would like to play a prominent, independent, noble role; one would like to make history, so that those same generations would have no right to say of each of us: ‘He was a nonentity,’ or even worse than that . . . I do believe in the purposefulness and necessity of what happens around us, but what does that necessity have to do with me? Why should my ‘I’ perish?’’
‘‘Well, what to do!’’ sighed Orlov, getting up and as if giving me to understand that our conversation was over.
I took my hat.
‘‘We’ve sat for only half an hour and resolved so many questions, just think!’’ Orlov said, seeing me off to the front hall. ‘‘So I’ll take care of that . . . Today I’ll be seeing Pekarsky. Have no doubts.’’
He stopped to wait while I put on my coat, and obviously felt pleasure at the fact that I would soon be gone.
‘‘Georgiy Ivanych, give me back my letter,’’ I said.
‘‘Yes, sir.’’
He went to the study and came back a moment later with the letter. I thanked him and left.
The next day I received a note from him. He congratulated me upon the fortunate solution of the problem. A lady of Pekarsky’s acquaintance, he wrote, kept a boarding school, something like a kindergarten, where even very small children were accepted. The lady was totally reliable, but, before entering into any agreements with her, it would do no harm to discuss things with Krasnovsky—formality required it. He advised me to go immediately to Pekarsky and, incidentally, to bring the birth certificate with me, if there was such a thing. ‘‘Accept the assurance of your humble servant’s sincere respect and devotion . . .’’
I was reading this letter, and Sonya was sitting on the table and looking at me attentively, without blinking, as if she knew her fate was being decided.
1892
THREE YEARS
I
IT WAS NOT dark yet, but here and there lights had been lit in the houses, and beyond the barracks at the end of the street a pale moon was rising. Laptev sat on a bench by the gate and waited for the end of vespers in the Peter-and-Paul church. He reckoned that Yulia Sergeevna, on her way home from vespers, would pass by, and then he would start talking with her and perhaps spend the whole evening with her.
He had been sitting there for about an hour and a half, and his imagination all the while had been picturing his Moscow apartment, his Moscow friends, his footman Pyotr, his desk; he kept glancing in perplexity at the dark, motionless trees, and it seemed strange to him that he was not now living in his dacha1 in Sokolniki, but in a provincial town, in a house past which a large herd was driven every morning and evening, accompanied by a frightful cloud of dust and the blowing of a horn. He remembered long Moscow conversations in which he himself had taken part still so recently—conversations about how it was possible to live without love, how passionate love was a psychosis, how there was finally no such thing as love, but only physical attraction between the sexes—all in the same vein; he remembered and thought sadly that if he were now asked what love was, he would be at a loss to answer.
Vespers were over, people appeared. Laptev peered at the dark figures intently. The bishop had driven past in his carriage, the bell ringing had stopped, and the red and green lights on the bell tower—this was an illumination on the occasion of the church’s feast day 2—had gone out one by one, yet people still walked unhurriedly, talking, stopping under windows. But then, finally, Laptev heard the familiar voice, his heart began to pound, and because Yulia Sergeevna was not alone but with some two ladies, he was overcome with despair.
‘‘This is terrible, terrible!’’ he whispered, jealous over her. ‘‘This is terrible!’’
At the corner, before turning into the lane, she stopped to say good-bye to the ladies and at that moment glanced at Laptev.
‘‘And I’m on my way to your house,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve come to have a talk with your father. Is he at home?’’
‘‘Probably,’’ she replied. ‘‘It’s too early for him to go to the club.’’
The lane was all gardens, and lindens grew by the fences, now casting a broad shadow in the moonlight, so that on one side, the fences and gates were completely drowned in darkness; from there came the whisper of women’s voices, restrained laughter, and someone very softly played a balalaika. It smelled of lindens and hay. This smell and the whispering of the invisible ones stirred Laptev. He suddenly wanted passionately to embrace his companion, to cover her face, hands, shoulders with kisses, to burst into sobs, to fall at her feet, to tell her how long he had been waiting for her. She gave off a slight, barely perceptible smell of incense, and it reminded him of the time when he also believed in God and went to vespers and dreamed much of a pure, poetic love. And because this girl did not love him, it seemed to him now that the possibility of the happiness he had dreamed of then was lost to him forever.
She began speaking with concern about the health of his sister, Nina Fyodorovna. Some two months ago, his sister had had a cancer removed, and now everyone expected the illness to return.
‘‘I went to see her this morning,’’ said Yulia Sergeevna, ‘‘and it seemed to me that in this last week she has not so much grown thin as faded away.’’
‘‘Yes, yes,’’ Laptev agreed. ‘‘There’s no relapse, but with each day, I’ve noticed, she grows weaker and weaker and wastes away before my eyes. I don’t understand what’s wrong with her.’’
‘‘Lord, and how healthy, plump, and red-cheeked she used to be!’’ said Yulia Sergeevna after a moment’s silence. ‘‘Here they all used to call her a robin. How she laughed! On feast days she’d dress up like a simple peasant, and it became her very well.’’
