Piotr Ivanitch went on writing in silence.
" Who is it, uncle ? " asked Alexandr.
" Do you want to know ? "
" Yes."
" The lady I'm about to marry ? "
"You—to marry!" Alexandr could scarcely utter the words; he leaped up from his place and went up to his uncle.
" No closer, no closer, Alexandr, shut off the steam I " said Piotr Ivanitch, seeing his nephew's round eyes of astonishment and quickly collecting round him the various small objects on the table—b usts, figures, clocks, a nd inkstands.
] tr Shd you are so calm ! you write letters to Moscow, and talk of outside matters, go to your factory and still talk with such hellish coldness about love!"
" Hellish coldness—that's something new, they say it's hot in hell. But why are you looking at me so strangely ? "
" You get married !"
"What is there astonishing in that?" asked Piotr Ivanitch laying down his pen.
"What indeed? you get married and never a word to me!"
" Why I have just told you."
"You mentioned it because it happened to be apropos of something."
" I try as far as I can to do everything a propos."
" No, you should have communicated your happiness to me first; you know how I love you and how I should participate ... ."
" I dislike participation in everything and especially in marriage."
"Do you know, uncle?" said Alexandr with animation "it may be . . . • no, I cannot conceal it from you. I am not like that, I must tell all."
" Oh, Alexandr, I've no time to spare; if there's another rigmarole, won't it do to-morrow ? "
" I want only to tell you that perhaps .... I too am soon to be as happy "
" What ?" asked Piotr Ivanitch, pricking up his ears a little, "that's something curious."
"Ah! curious? then I will torment you: I won't tell you."
Piotr Ivanitch took up an envelope with an air of indifference, put his letter in it and began to seal it up. *J l " And I too am going to be married perhaps!" said ^Alexandr in his uncle's ear.
Piotr Ivanitch did not finish sealing the letter up but looked at him very seriously.
" Shut off your steam, Alexandr !" he said.
A
A COMMON STORY 75
" You may joke, uncle, you may joke, I am speaking in earnest. I shall ask mamma's consent."
" You get married!"
" And why not ? "
"At your age?"
" I am twenty-three."
" It's high time indeed ! Why at your age no one marries except peasants, who want some one to do the work in their house."
" But if I am in love with a girl, and there is a possibility of marrying her, then, according to you, ought I not "
" I d on't advi se you at any time to marry a woman with w hom y ou are in Iove7
" what7uncle? fliafs a new idea; I never heard of it before."
" I should fancy there are things you haven't heard of."
" I always thought that there ought not to be marriage without love, r
^Marriage is one thing, love is another," said PiQtt
IvanitcnT ** n What are you marrying for then ? For your advantage ? "
" To my advantage, certainly, though not for my advantage. Even you will think of advantages when you marry, you will look out, will choose among women."
" Look out, choose!" cried Alexandr wonderingly.
"Yes, choose. For this rpflsnn^j^dnn^ fid vi se y ou. \SL
marry when vou are M JWB.... Epve, you k^w^ js.fleeting^— th&t is a truth that has become a commonplace."
" It is the grossest lie and calumny."
"Well, there is no convincing you now, you will see for yourself in time, but now only mark my words; love is fleeting^ I repeat, and then the woman who has perhaps seemed to you the ideal of perfection shows herself to be very imperfect, and there's no help for it then. Love screens the absence of qualities needed in a wife. But when in choosing you consider in cool blood whether such or such a woman has the qualities which you would like to see in your wife, you get the greatest advantage. And if you find such a woman she is certain to continue to please you, because she answers to what you wanted. And so closer ties spring up between her and you, which afterwards go to make you "
i " Love one another ? " said Alexandr. ^ "Yes, and suit one another. Marrying f or money —that i s lowj but to marry witho ut any advantage—tfiafTs' stupid T .\ . but it is not suiTaBTeTor^ybii** to* iri fiVTSt"£tt now.'' ~ "When should I marry? When I am growing old? Why should I follow such foolish precedents ? " " You reckon my marriage one ? Thanks!" " I did not mean any reflection on you, uncle, I mean it generally. You hear of a wedding; you go to see it and what do you see? a lovely tender creature who has only been awaiting the magic touch of love to break into a splendid flower, and suddenly they tear her away from her dolls, her nurse, her childish games and dances, and it's well if it's only from all that; but often they don't look into her heart, which very likely is no longer her own. They dress her up in gauze, in blonde, they deck her in flowers, and in spite of her tears, her paleness, they drag her like a victim to the altar and set her beside—whom ? Beside an elderly man, generally unattractive, who has already squandered the strength of his youth. He either casts on her the glances of a passion which is an outrage, or coldly scans her from head to foot and thinks to himself apparently, ' You're pretty, yes, on my word with your head full of nonsense; love and roses—I will soon put an end to such folly, it's all silliness! with me you must give up sighing and dreaming and conduct yourself more properly;' or worse still, he is reflecting on her fortune. At the very youngest he is thirty years old. He often has a bald head, though I daresay he has a decoration or star on his breast. And ' this is the man' they tell her to whom are consecrated all the treasures of your youth, for him the first throbbing of your heart, the first avowal, his are your looks and words and maiden caresses, his is your whole life. And all round are standing in the crowd those who are her equals in youth and beauty, who ought to have been in the bridegroom's place. They gaze eagerly at the poor victim and seem to be saying: ' Ah, when we have exhausted our freshness and health, when we are bald, we too will get married and then we too shall carry of! such a splendid rose:} It's awful!"
[igh-flown, not good, Alexandr! " said Piotr Ivanitch ; " have you been writing now for two years on manures, and
potato-starch, and other serious subjects and you still talk in this high-flown way. For goodness' sake, don't give way to ecstasy."
"But, uncle, is not the poet's thought conceived in ecstasy ? "
"I don't know how it's conceived, but I know that it comes forth finished from the brain, that is when it has been worked up by meditation: it is only then that it is good. Well, but in your opinion," began Piotr Ivanitch after a pause: "to whom would you give these lovely creatures ? "
" To those whom they love, who have not yet lost the bloom of youth and beauty, whom one can see to be still full of life, in whose eyes the fire has not yet died away, who would have brought her the gift of a heart full of love for her, able to understand and to share her emotions when nature claims." ....
" I dare say! you mean to such fine fellows as you. If we were living ' in meads and forests thick'—and such a fellow as you had a wife—much he would get by it! for the first year he would be out of his senses, and then he would either take to hanging about behind the scenes of the theatre, or would give his wife a rival in her lady's maid, because nature's claims of which you talk, demand change, novelty—a pretty state of things ! And then his wife too, noticing her husband's pranks, would suddenly take a fancy to spurs, parades and masquerades, and would pay him out in his own coin .... and without money, it is worse still; he comes begging, ' I have nothing to eat'!"