" Very well, we shall see."
Piotr Ivanitch sat down to the table and at once wrote a few lines, then passed the letter to Alexandr.
"In my old age I have taken to authorship," he had written; "what's to be done: I want to be famous, to succeed in it—I have gone a little crazy! I have sent the novel enclosed. Look at it, and if it is suitable print it in your journal, for payment, of course; you know I don't like working for nothing. You will see it and hardly believe it's mine, but I authorise you to sign my name to it, to prove I am telling the truth."
Relying upon a favourable reply about the novel, Alexandr awaited the answer tranquilly.
Three weeks passed by, however, still there was no answer. At last one morning a large parcel and letter was brought in to Piotr Ivanitch.
" Ah ! they have sent it back !" he said, glancing slyly at his wife.
He did not break open the note nor show it to his wife, as she did not ask to see it. That same evening before going to the club he himself started to his nephew.
The door was not closed. He went in; Yevsay was snoring, stretched diagonally across the entry on the floor. The candle wanted snuffing badly and hung down out of the
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candlestick. He looked into the inner room—it was dark.
" Oh, the provinces !" muttered Piotr Ivanitch.
He roused Yevsay, showed him the door and the candle, and threatened him with a stick. In the third room Alex-andr was sitting, his arms on the table and his head on his arms; he too was asleep. Some papers were lying before him. Piotr Ivanitch looked—verses.
He took a sheet and read as follows :
" My springtide fair is over now, Love s burning moment's gone for ever; Love in my heart is deeply slumbering, Nor stirs with fiery breath my blood. Upon her altar-shrine deserted Another deity I've raised, To whom I pray.'*
" He is deeply slumbering himself too ! Go on praying, my dear boy, don't be lazy!" said Piotr Ivanitch aloud. " Your own verses, but how they have exhausted you! What need of any other opinion ? You have spoken for yourself! "
" Ah !" said Alexandr, stretching, " you are always hostile to my compositions ! Tell me candidly, uncle, what makes you so persistently persecute talent when you cannot help confessing "
" Envy, to be sure, Alexandr. I have lived my life quietly, obscurely, have only fulfilled my duty, and was even proud and happy in it. When I am dead, that is when I shall feel and know nothing, the harps of minstrel seers shall not tell of me. How different with you? do you know that your future fame, your immortality is in my pocket ?— what glory !"
" The answer to your note. Ah, for Heaven's sake, give it me directly; what does he write ?"
" I haven't read it; read it yourself aloud."
Alexandr began to read aloud, while Piotr Ivanitch tapped his boot with his finger. This is what was in the letter:
"What mystification is this, my dear Piotr Ivanitch? You writing novels! And you thought you could catch an old bird like me? But if you had really produced the novel lying before me, then I should tell you that the
most fragile products of your factory have far more solidity than this creation."
Alexandras voice suddenly dropped.
" But I repudiate anything so insulting to you," he went on in timid and subdued tone.
"I don't hear, Alexandr, a litde louder!" said Piotr Ivanitch.
Alexandr continued in a low voice.
" Since you take an interest in the author of the novel, you no doubt wish to know my opinion of it. Here it is. The author must be young. He is not stupid; but is not very happily at feud with the whole world. He is truly disillusioned. Oh, Lord, when will the race be extinct? What a pity that through a false view of life so much ability among us is wasted in empty, profitless dreams, in vain efforts after what they are not fitted for."
Alexandr paused and took breath. Piotr Ivanitch began to smoke a cigar and blew a ring of smoke. His face, as usual, expressed perfect calm. Alexandr continued to read in a low, hardly audible voice.
"Vanity, sentimentality, premature emotionalism with their inevitable consequence—indolence—these are the causes of this evil. Discipline, work, practical business— that's what our sickly and indolent young people want to sober them."
" The whole matter might have been made clear in three lines," said Piotr Ivanitch looking at his watch, " but he is writing a complete essay in a letter to a friend ! isn't he a pedant ? Are you going to read any more, Alexandr? throw it away; it's a bore. There is something I want to say to you."
" No, uncle, let me drink the cup to the dregs; I will read to the end."
" Well, I hope it will do you good!"
"This lamentable bent of mind," Alexandr read, "is apparent in every line of the novel you have sent me. Tell your protigk that an author only writes successfully, in the first place, when he is not under the sway of his personal feelings and passions. He must survey with calm untroubled gaze the world and life generally; otherwise, he will express only his Ego, with whom no one else has any concern. This defect is glaringly apparent in the novel. The second and
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principal condition—which, pray, do not tell the author, out of compassion for his youth and vanity of authorship—talent, is essential, and he has no trace of it. The language, however, is throughout correct and good; the author even shows a sense of style."
With difficulty could Alexandr read to the end.
"At last he comes to the point," said Piotr Ivanitch, "and what a rigmarole first! Let us discuss the rest without him."
Alexandr let his hands hang limp. In silence, like a man stunned by an unexpected blow, he gazed with hazy eyes at the opposite well.
"Come, Alexandr, how do you feel now?" asked Piotr Ivanitch.
Alexandr did not hear this observation.
" Can it, too, be a dream ? has this, too, cheated me ? " he muttered. " A bitter loss I What, can't one get used to being deceived! But why, I can't understand, was this overmastering impulse to creative art entrusted to me ? "
" Come, come, the impulse was entrusted to you, but the creative art itself they forgot to entrust to you," said Piotr Ivanitch. " Fve explained it! "
Alexander answered by a sigh, and sank into thought Then suddenly he rushed vehemently to open all the drawers, took out several manuscript books, sheets of paper, and scraps, and began in exasperation to throw them into the stove.
" Here, don't forget this!" said Piotr Ivanitch, passing him the sheet of unfinished verses that lay on the table.
" That too may go !" said Alexander in despair, throwing the verses into the stove.
" Is there nothing more ? Look round thoroughly," said Piotr Ivanitch, glajicing round him; " for once you will be doing a sensible thing. There, what's that in the cupboard in a bundle ? "
" In with it," said Alexandr, taking it; " it's my articles on agriculture."
" Don't burn that! give it to me!" said Piotr Ivanitch, holding out his hand, "that's not rubbish."
But Alexandr did not heed him. No!" he said bitterly, "since the great power of J
u
creation has failed me in the sphere of art, I don't want it
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V
166 A COMMON STORY
in the sphere of industry. Fate shall not subdue me to that!"
And the bundle flew into the hearth.
"That's a pity !" observed Piotr Ivanitch, while he rummaged with a finger under the table, to see whether there was not something more to throw in the fire.
" But what shall we do with the novel, Alexandr ? It's at home."