Part 6

“‘Yes, friend, of course, it’s your business,’ said M. Budnikov. He caught sight of me but did not think it necessary to change the subject. He spoke spitefully and angrily.... ‘Yes.... You’re a free man.... But just remember, Gavrilo Stepanich, if you have any utilitarian object, ... I, of course, can give only a very small sum....’

“M. Budnikov was unable to speak simply, and used foreign words, even when talking to Gavrilo.... Gavrilo looked at him calmly and answered:

“‘We don’t want anything.... We have enough....’

“M. Budnikov glanced cautiously at him and answered:

“‘Fine! Remember! Afterwards.... I’ll go to Petersburg on business.... Do what you want to.’

“Gavrilo bowed and said:

“‘I thank you....’

“‘Excuse me,’ replied M. Budnikov, with a shadow of ironical melancholy, ‘I don’t expect gratitude.’

“He slammed the gate and left the garden.

“He stopped and waited for me in the yard, took my arm, and came up to my rooms. On the way, and in my apartments, he kept talking confusedly and incoherently. He did not conceal the fact that he had had some affection for a certain woman. This might be still ‘alive under the ashes.’ ... On the other hand he was dreaming of union and the possibility of friendship with his humblest brother. Although both of these feelings had led to his disillusionment, he could show something, so that every one would feel it.... But in general, magnanimity and the finer feelings belong only to highly cultured people....

“He was nervous and under his rather artificial pathos, I could see his real exasperation and anger.

“I later had a chance to see his diary. These were separate pages, written like letters to his distant friend.... Apparently he hadn’t sent any letters for a long time, but these pages were like lights in the darkness. Under the approximate day of the conversation with Gavrilo was a passionate note. He told the whole story of Yelena, and wrote that he had made a mistake, and that he now loved her.... And that he would try once more.... This ended with a sudden burst of poetry: ‘My distant friend, you, of course, do not doubt that I will do what I consider the duty of magnanimity....’

“Then, sending Gavrilo one day with the horse somewhere outside the city, M. Budnikov went to the wing where Yelena still lived.

“‘Yelena! You should come to me. You must fix up something....’

“A few days before this he had been thoughtful and solemn, but now he dressed in style, went to the wing, and entered Yelena’s room, without heeding the inquisitive looks of his tenants.

“No one knew what happened in that room, but a half-hour later M. Budnikov came out, stubborn, affected, but apparently dazed. Every one began to say that he had formally proposed to Yelena and—she had rejected him.

“After this he left for Petersburg, where he had a lawsuit before the Senate. He lost it, and when he returned, Gavrilo and Yelena were already married.

V

“This made a great impression upon him, like some great spiritual conversion. One apparently insignificant circumstance especially surprised him. Every spring flowers grew by the wall under M. Budnikov’s windows. This Yelena did regularly, and it was put down as an annual source of expense: seed, a watering pot, to a blacksmith for mending the spade.... In the early spring Yelena used to set to work at it, gladly and merrily, and M. Budnikov took a delighted interest in it. Now that wing was neglected, the flower bed languished, M. Budnikov’s windows seemed blind.... But the other wing, where Gavrilo and his wife lived, bloomed and flourished. A symbol. When M. Budnikov came back from the station and took one look at this unexpected contrast his face changed, and for a short time he lost his usual aristocratic air. I suddenly felt sorry for him. I went out and invited him into my room. He sat with me a long time and gave me his impressions of the capital,—verbose, rambling, insincere. I kept feeling that M. Budnikov’s soul was thinking of something very far removed from his impressions of the capital.

“Gradually everything drifted back into the old channels. M. Budnikov still went twice a week to his farm, still visited his tenants on certain days, still prepared his dinner on an oil stove. But there were more trifles in his diary; for example, he began to note down how many steps he took each day, and apparently counted thereby the use and value of various things.

“In a short time another change took place: M. Budnikov felt attracted to religion.

“I remember one fall evening.... It was one of those evenings when nature touches your soul especially. The stars seem to be waving and whispering in the heavens, and the earth is covered with light and shade.... Our little city, as you know, is quiet and filled with foliage. You go out in the evening and sit down on your steps. And so with the other houses along the street; here’s one person on a bench by the gate, another on the dirt bank, another on the grass.... People are whispering about themselves, the trees about themselves,—and there’s a hardly perceptible hum. Yes, and something’s whispering in your soul. You unconsciously review your whole life. What was and what is left, where you came from, what’s going to happen? Then, everything ... the meaning of your life in the general economy of nature, so to speak, ... nature, where all the stars sink, unnumbered, unlimited, ... they gleam and shine.... And speak to your soul. Sometimes it’s sad and deep and quiet.... You feel you’re going to the wrong place. You begin to think what’s there above.... You want to run away from this reproving beauty, this exalted calm, with your load of confusion, and you want to melt away in it.... You’ve no place to go.... You enter your office, look at all your things in the lamp-light ... text-books, copy-books with answers written by your pupils.... And you ask: where’s there anything alive?...”

Petr Petrovich muttered something and the narrator stopped again.

“Well ... that was the way I felt and I was sitting on my steps and thinking: here’s the people coming from vespers.... What of it? That’s the way they find their relations to the infinite.... Or else it’s nothing but habit, mere automatic motion. I prefer it to be real. Suddenly I saw one man leave the crowd and come towards me. It turned out to be M. Budnikov. He had been to vespers. He sat down beside me.

“I felt that M. Budnikov was waiting, you know, for me to ask him why he went to church. He never had gone and was always sarcastic about religion, but now he had suddenly commenced to go. I was really interested and the evening led me to be frank.... Why not say, I thought, that there’s a cloud on my soul....

“Yes, Semen Nikolayevich, ...” I said ... “I look at the sky and think....

“He nodded and commenced:

“‘That tortured me, too ... and I suffered.... And like you, I saw no solution. But the solution is so plain....’

“He pointed toward the church, a white spot showing through the trees.

“‘We, intelligent people,’” he said, “‘are frightened, so to speak, by the beaten path, banality. But,—we must drop our pride and fuse ... or as Tolstoy once said,—partake of the common cup, search with the humble faith of humanity ... cease examining the foundations of life.... Like Antaeus, so to speak, we must touch our common mother....’

“He spoke rather nicely. His voice was so sleepy and murmured like the bass in the episcopal choir. I’ll tell you the truth: I felt envious.... Really you could feel the quiet and blessing.... As M. Budnikov said, it was worth while to fuse, and all these searchings of the heart are healed as by the holy oil. Suddenly I found the lost meaning. I asked myself: what’s the use of these books? Why all these notes, all this quiet life?... Why is this bootmaker solemn and satisfied? Mikhailo looks for no special meaning, but he floats along with the general current of life, that is, he agrees with its general significance and meaning. People go maybe once a week into this little white building which looks out so attractive through the trees; they spend a little time in communion with some mystery—and see, for a week they are supplied with the idea of meaning.... And many live a harder life than I do....

“There’s M. Budnikov.... Had he really found _this_ for himself and solved his troubles? I almost asked, but our priest went by just then. M. Budnikov bowed and he returned it pleasantly. And he looked at me with questioning kindness.... Budnikov has been converted and may bring back another wanderer. I answered the bow rather warmly and gratefully, and again felt like asking M. Budnikov, but another person of an entirely different character put in an appearance....”

VI

Pavel Semenovich thought for a moment and then asked Petr Petrovich:

“Did Rogov ever study with you?”

“Rogov ... I don’t remember ... I’ve had so many....”

“He was remarkable and our council often discussed him.... His fate was peculiar.... You see, the boy’s father was a rascal of the old school, a slanderer, drunkard and a quarrelsome fellow, and as much bothered by modern times as a wolf is by hunters. He came too late. Rough manners unfitted for the present times. He spent his last days in trouble, poverty, and drunkenness. He always thought that fate did not treat him fairly; people got along well, but he, as he thought,—a model of activity,—was dirty, hungry and oppressed.... And imagine,—this man had a family ... a wife and son....

“The wife was irresponsible; her whole being had been crushed in the full sense of the word, except one corner of her soul. When anything concerned her son, a door seemed to open into her completely stupefied soul, which was like a citadel uncaptured in the midst of a fallen city, and so much wifely heroism came out through this gate that at times the old ruffian and drunkard put his tail between his legs. God knows what this cost her, but she succeeded just the same in giving her son an education. When I went to teach in Tikhodol, I found this fellow in the last class. He was a bashful, apparently modest boy and behaved quietly; but his eyes had such an expression, strange, restrained; I confess it made you uneasy: a curious fire, like the flame of a restless, internal conflagration. His thin, drawn face was always pale and a crop of brown hair fell over his rough forehead. He learned easily, made few friends among his schoolmates, seemed to hate his father and loved his mother almost abnormally.

“Now ... excuse me.... I must say a few words about myself. Otherwise you won’t understand a lot of what’s coming.... I’d only been teaching a very few years and had the usual idea.... I looked at my calling as noble, so to speak, from the ideal point of view. My companions seemed a holy regiment, yes ... the gymnasium almost a temple.... You know, young people feel that way and value it highly.... You run to this light with every trouble and every question.... It’s the living soul of our business.... What shall I say, when he comes to you, a fellow with his young soul under his uniform with all its buttons sewed on.... I, the teacher, need him with his questions and errors.... And he needs me to search and study.... Honestly you want to guide them....”

The narrator paused and continued in a low voice:

“That’s the way it was with me.... I got intimate with several boys from my classes, among them Rogov.... Gave them books, and they visited me. You understand, over a samovar, simply, heart to heart. I remember this as the finest time of my life.... Every time you open a new journal, you find conversation, discussion, argument. I listened, without interfering at first, to the way they wandered and argued, and then I explained,—carefully but pleasantly. You see, you get one thought and then another, and again it comes so sharp that it scratches you.... And you feel how you need to restrain yourself and think and study. And you grow with them.... And live....

“It didn’t last long. One day my director called me in for a confidential conversation.... Well, you know the rest.... This ‘extracurricular’ influence of the leaders of youth does not enjoy protection. Journals already!... The director, you know him,—Nikolay Platonovich Popov,—is a fastidious man.... He merely hinted and afterwards acted as if he really knew nothing.... I almost got angry; at first I even refused to obey, and appealed to the highest understanding of my obligations. Then ... I saw that it was no use. The main point was that I wasn’t the only one getting talked about: the boys were getting a bad reputation.... That was hard and difficult enough but what could I say to my young disputants? How could I explain it? I obeyed the evidently senseless and humiliating order! This was the first blow that life had dealt me and I did not notice at the time that I had received a mortal wound.

“I obeyed and stopped my evening discussions. I can conscientiously say that I thought even more about them. But youths, you know, don’t obey so easily and can’t understand the whole meaning. One evening this Rogov came to me with a companion. Secretly. Flushed faces, blazing eyes, and a peculiar look.... I stopped this kind of fellowship. ‘No,’ I said, ‘gentlemen, we’d better stop it.’ I saw that both boys were getting worked up. Rogov began to say something, but he had a convulsion of the throat and his eyes suddenly took on an evil expression.... I found a way to justify myself: I was afraid for them, especially for Rogov and his mother.... You see, if our conspiracies were discovered, his whole career—and his mother’s heroism—would have gone for nothing. So I yielded ... for the first time....

“In place of this I tried to make my lessons as interesting as possible. My evenings were free.... It was boring. I’d begun to get accustomed to my young circle. And now—nothing. I went for my books. Worked like a dog and kept thinking: this must be interesting to them; it will be new and it answers such and such questions.... I read and dug in my books, collected everything interesting, attractive, that pushed apart the official walls and the official lessons.... I kept thinking of those conversations.... And I thought I was getting results.... I remember the whole class almost died from zeal.... Suddenly the director began to attend the lessons. He’d come in, sit down, and listen without saying a word.... You know what happened next. You act as if it were nothing, but both you and the class feel it’s not a lesson but a sort of investigation.... Again delicate questions on the side: ‘Really, excuse me, but where did you get this? Out of what official text book? How do you think this agrees with the courses of study?’

“I’ll be brief.... In a word, the enthusiasm finally died out of me.... The class became merely a class: the living people began to retire further and further; they disappeared in a sort of fog.... I lost intellectual contact. Remarks ... plan ... the enumeration of the stylistic beauties of a live work. In this there are twelve beauties. First ... second ... and so on.... It fitted the program.... That is, you understand, I didn’t notice how I dried up just like Budnikov.

“Anyway this young fellow finished his course and went to the capital.... He didn’t get into the university right away. It was the time of secret denunciations.... Perhaps my lectures were suspicious. To sum up,—he lost a year. He wrote his mother that he had entered and had a fellowship, but he really beat his way along, was poor and probably got disgusted. Then he began to tramp. Suddenly he had a great sorrow: his mother died before he could get home. As soon as her son left home, she began to waste away.... The guiding star of her life, so to speak, disappeared from the horizon—and she lost the power of resistance. Died of consumption, you know, quickly, almost gladly. ‘Vanya doesn’t need me any more,’ she’d say. ‘I got him on the right track, thank God. He’ll get along now.’ She said the Nunc Dimittis and died. Soon after they found the honored father in a ditch. And my Rogov was an orphan....

“The old woman was really in too much of a hurry; her son really needed her more than ever. He learned well and eagerly, so to speak, without wasting his time, as if he were hurrying somewhere. When he heard of his mother’s death, something broke in his soul.... In turn she seemed to have been the only ideal in his life. ‘I’ll finish, get on my feet, revive my shattered truth: even though she’s ready to die, mother’ll know that there is divine blessing, love, and gratitude.... For a year, a month, even a week.... An instant even, for her heart to be filled and melted with joy.’ Suddenly, in place of everything, the grave.... A crash ... and it’s all over! There’s no need of gratitude, nothing to go back to, to correct.... You’ve got to have strength to stand such a temptation without being shattered.... You need faith in the general meaning of life.... It mustn’t seem to you but blind chance....

“He didn’t hold on. He had no support.... He changed, got rough, and began to drink in with his wine a poisonous feeling of insult and of the injustice of fate.... So it went. He threw up his examinations—what was the use of getting a diploma? He drifted along like an empty boat on a river.... He came back to our city.... Perhaps he wanted to tie up by his mother’s grave.... But how could that help him?... If he’d tried to find some meaning, that would have been another thing.... And so ... he got in court a certificate, ‘to travel’ on business, and followed his father’s footsteps. He lived a dissolute life, spent his time in saloons, with worthless people, and engaged in business of the most shady character. One year of this life,—and he’d become a drunken, impudent bum, the enfant terrible of our peaceful city, a menace to the citizens. The devil knows how, but the bashful boy became insolent and diabolically clever: every one in the city was afraid of him.... It’s strange, but there isn’t a city in Russia without its Rogov. A sort of a state character. It was quiet everywhere, peaceful slumber, idyllic calm, M. Budnikov walking along the streets, obstinate, conceited, counting his steps.... Evenings, especially on holidays, these poetic murmurs, and there’s a lot of noise from some saloon like our ‘On the Crags,’ and some misshapen, sick and desperate soul carousing.... Satellites around, of course. This is a natural and necessary detail to fill up the provincial corners, so to speak....

“Rogov met me soon after he turned up.... He bowed shyly and went to one side, especially when he was drunk. One time I met him, spoke to him, and asked him in.... He came ... sober, serious, even bashful ... from old habit, of course.... But we didn’t stick together. Memories parted us: I was a young teacher with a lively faith in my calling, with lively feelings and words: He was a young man, still pure and respecting my moral authority.... Now he was Vanka Rogov, a Tikhodol bum, engaged in shady business.... And I.... In a word, we seemed to be parted by a solid wall: the main reason of all I won’t mention. I felt that I had to shatter the barrier, tell him something that would reach his soul and control it as I used to.... He seemed to be waiting for this in terror: waiting for the cruel blow.... His eyes showed his pain and expectation.... I didn’t have the strength. It was gone, ... lost probably when for the first time we parted in shame....

“I had to watch like a sympathetic witness, so to speak, how this young fellow degraded himself, grew fast, drank, and defiled himself.... He got insolent, lost all sense of shame. Then I heard that Rogov was an extortioner and begging. Business was poor; he was on the border between the merely offensive and the criminal. He was as clever as an acrobat and laughed at everything. In two or three years he was absolutely transformed. He had become a menacing, dirty, and very unpleasant figure.

“Sometimes he’d come when he was drunk.... It’s strange: but I seemed to feel more at home when he was that way.... It simplified matters, his fault was evident, and it was easier to draw a moral. I remember after one of his descents into the loathsome, I said to him:

“‘This and that’s not right, Rogov.’

“He shrugged his shoulders, turned away his eyes, as if he was afraid of a moral beating; then he shook his hair, looked me straight in the eye, obviously relying on his impudence:

“‘What’s wrong, Pavel Semenovich?’

“‘It’s disgraceful,’ I said.

“‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve changed one quarrelsome goal for another not less quarrelsome. That was wrong and now it’s disgraceful. My theory works out all right for me,’ he said. ‘Honor and everything like that is nothing but dessert. You know it comes after dinner. If there’s no dinner, what’s the use of dessert?...’

“‘But, remember, Rogov,’ I said, ‘why you have no dinner.... You studied well, had a good start, and then suddenly went wrong....’

“That moment I thought my statement was not only convincing but incontrovertible.... And he looked at me, laughed, and said:

“‘You’ve sometimes played billiards a little, haven’t you?’

“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I play for relaxation....’

“‘You know the downward stroke?’

“‘Yes.’ You know that’s a peculiar and paradoxical shot. The ball first goes forward and then it suddenly and apparently of its own accord rolls back.... At first sight it seems incomprehensible and a violation of the laws of motion, but it’s really simple.

“‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked. ‘Has the ball a will of its own? No.... It’s merely a contest between two different motions.... One rules in the beginning, the other later.... Now you see,’ he said, ‘all her life my mother went straight but father, as you know, spun around like a top. That’s why I went straight at first, as long as my mother’s impulse lasted.... I hadn’t gotten my bearings, when I swung round to father’s pattern.... There’s my whole story....’

“He spoke frankly and hopelessly. He dropped his head, shook his hair down over his face, and then, when he looked at me again, I felt uneasy. His eyes showed his pain. Did you ever see a sick animal?... A dog,—usually an affectionate brute, is willing then to bite its master.

“‘Now,’ he said, ‘whom do you think’s to blame?’

“‘I don’t know, Rogov. I’m not your judge.... It’s not a question of blame....’

“‘Not of blame, what then? I think he’s to blame who started me off with that shot.... That means to condemn no one. I’m a case of downward stroke in life.... I do the will of Him that sent me.... So there you are, my dear Pavel Semenovich.... Have you got two grivens of silver? I want to drown my sorrow....’

“This was the first time that he had asked me for two grivens and I instantly felt that the old barrier between us had been broken. Now he could insult me as he would any one else.

“I wanted to defend myself.

“‘No, Rogov. I won’t give you two grivens. Come any time you feel like.... I’m glad to see you.... But this is impossible....’

“He dropped his shaggy head, sat down, and said dully:

“‘Yes, Pavel Semenovich. Excuse me. I’ll come without begging. Yet to sit down with you, I feel easier and free from my usual load.’

“He sat still. A long, strained silence ensued. Then he said:

“‘There was a time ... when I hoped to receive something from you.... You don’t know what you meant to me. Even now I sometimes feel I must see you. You’re waiting for something.... No.... It’s hopeless.... A downward stroke and it’s all over....’

“‘Excuse me, Rogov,’ I said. ‘You’re really misusing that example from billiards. You’re not an ivory ball but a living man.’