comic gesture of his hand.
At this point Woloda re-entered.
"Are we going?"
"No."
"What an odd fellow you are!" said Nechludoff. "Why don't you say that
you have no money? Here, take my ticket."
"But what are you going to do?"
"He can go into his cousin's box," said Dubkoff.
"No, I'm not going at all," replied Nechludoff.
"Why?"
"Because I hate sitting in a box."
"And for what reason?"
"I don't know. Somehow I feel uncomfortable there."
"Always the same! I can't understand a fellow feeling uncomfortable
when he is sitting with people who are fond of him. It is unnatural, mon
cher."
"But what else is there to be done si je suis tant timide? You never
blushed in your life, but I do at the least trifle," and he blushed at
that moment.
"Do you know what that nervousness of yours proceeds from?" said Dubkoff
in a protecting sort of tone, "D'un exces d'amour propre, mon cher."
"What do you mean by 'exces d'amour propre'?" asked Nechludoff, highly
offended. "On the contrary, I am shy just because I have TOO LITTLE
amour propre. I always feel as though I were being tiresome and
disagreeable, and therefore--"
"Well, get ready, Woloda," interrupted Dubkoff, tapping my brother on
the shoulder and handing him his cloak. "Ignaz, get your master ready."
"Therefore," continued Nechludoff, "it often happens with me that--"
But Dubkoff was not listening. "Tra-la-la-la," and he hummed a popular
air.
"Oh, but I'm not going to let you off," went on Nechludoff. "I mean to
prove to you that my shyness is not the result of conceit."
"You can prove it as we go along."
"But I have told you that I am NOT going."
"Well, then, stay here and prove it to the DIPLOMAT, and he can tell us
all about it when we return."
"Yes, that's what I WILL do," said Nechludoff with boyish obstinacy, "so
hurry up with your return."
"Well, do you think I am egotistic?" he continued, seating himself
beside me.
True, I had a definite opinion on the subject, but I felt so taken aback
by this unexpected question that at first I could make no reply.
"Yes, I DO think so," I said at length in a faltering voice, and
colouring at the thought that at last the moment had come when I could
show him that I was clever. "I think that EVERYBODY is egotistic, and
that everything we do is done out of egotism."
"But what do you call egotism?" asked Nechludoff--smiling, as I thought,
a little contemptuously.
"Egotism is a conviction that we are better and cleverer than any one
else," I replied.
"But how can we ALL be filled with this conviction?" he inquired.
"Well, I don't know if I am right or not--certainly no one but myself
seems to hold the opinion--but I believe that I am wiser than any one
else in the world, and that all of you know it."
"At least I can say for myself," observed Nechludoff, "that I have met a
FEW people whom I believe to excel me in wisdom."
"It is impossible," I replied with conviction.
"Do you really think so?" he said, looking at me gravely.
"Yes, really," I answered, and an idea crossed my mind which I proceeded
to expound further. "Let me prove it to you. Why do we love ourselves
better than any one else? Because we think ourselves BETTER than any
one else--more worthy of our own love. If we THOUGHT others better than
ourselves, we should LOVE them better than ourselves: but that is never
the case. And even if it were so, I should still be right," I added with
an involuntary smile of complacency.
For a few minutes Nechludoff was silent.
"I never thought you were so clever," he said with a smile so
goodhumoured and charming that I at once felt happy.
Praise exercises an all-potent influence, not only upon the feelings,
but also upon the intellect; so that under the influence of that
agreeable sensation I straightway felt much cleverer than before, and
thoughts began to rush with extraordinary rapidity through my head.
From egotism we passed insensibly to the theme of love, which seemed
inexhaustible. Although our reasonings might have sounded nonsensical to
a listener (so vague and one-sided were they), for ourselves they had a
profound significance. Our minds were so perfectly in harmony that not a
chord was struck in the one without awakening an echo in the other, and
in this harmonious striking of different chords we found the greatest
delight. Indeed, we felt as though time and language were insufficient
to express the thoughts which seethed within us.
XXVII. THE BEGINNING OF OUR FRIENDSHIP
From that time forth, a strange, but exceedingly pleasant, relation
subsisted between Dimitri Nechludoff and myself. Before other people he
paid me scanty attention, but as soon as ever we were alone, we would
sit down together in some comfortable corner and, forgetful both of time
and of everything around us, fall to reasoning.
We talked of a future life, of art, service, marriage, and education;
nor did the idea ever occur to us that very possibly all we said was
shocking nonsense. The reason why it never occurred to us was that the
nonsense which we talked was good, sensible nonsense, and that, so long
as one is young, one can appreciate good nonsense, and believe in it. In
youth the powers of the mind are directed wholly to the future, and
that future assumes such various, vivid, and alluring forms under the
influence of hope--hope based, not upon the experience of the past, but
upon an assumed possibility of happiness to come--that such dreams of
expected felicity constitute in themselves the true happiness of that
period of our life. How I loved those moments in our metaphysical
discussions (discussions which formed the major portion of our
intercourse) when thoughts came thronging faster and faster, and,
succeeding one another at lightning speed, and growing more and more
abstract, at length attained such a pitch of elevation that one felt
powerless to express them, and said something quite different from what
one had intended at first to say! How I liked those moments, too, when,
carried higher and higher into the realms of thought, we suddenly felt
that we could grasp its substance no longer and go no further!
At carnival time Nechludoff was so much taken up with one festivity and
another that, though he came to see us several times a day, he never
addressed a single word to me. This offended me so much that once again
I found myself thinking him a haughty, disagreeable fellow, and only
awaited an opportunity to show him that I no longer valued his company
or felt any particular affection for him. Accordingly, the first time
that he spoke to me after the carnival, I said that I had lessons to do,
and went upstairs, but a quarter of an hour later some one opened the
schoolroom door, and Nechludoff entered.
"Am I disturbing you?" he asked.
"No," I replied, although I had at first intended to say that I had a
great deal to do.
"Then why did you run away just now? It is a long while since we had a