“I knew himself for three months,” Liza added.
“You’re saying himselfabout Vasin, Liza? You ought to say him, and not himself. Excuse me, sister, for correcting you, but it distresses me that your education seems to have been quite neglected.”
“It’s mean on your part to make such observations in front of your mother,” Tatyana Pavlovna flared up, “and you’re wrong, it hasn’t been neglected.”
“I’m not saying anything about my mother,” I put in sharply. “You should know, mama, that I look upon Liza as a second you; you’ve made of her the same loveliness of kindness and character as you surely were yourself, and are now, to this day, and will be eternally . . . What I meant was external polish, all that society stupidity, which is nevertheless indispensable. I’m only indignant that Versilov, if he heard you say himselfinstead of himabout Vasin, probably wouldn’t correct you at all—he’s so haughty and indifferent with us. That’s what infuriates me!”
“He’s a bear cub himself, and here he’s teaching us about polish. Don’t you dare, sir, to say ‘Versilov’ in front of your mother, or in my presence either—I won’t stand for it!” Tatyana Pavlovna flashed fire.
“Mama, I received my salary today, fifty roubles, here, take it please!”
I went over and gave her the money; she became alarmed at once.
“Ah, I don’t know how I can take it!” she said, as if afraid to touch the money. I didn’t understand.
“For pity’s sake, mama, if you both regard me as a son and a brother in the family, then . . .”
“Ah, I’m guilty before you, Arkady; I should confess certain things to you, but I’m so afraid of you . . .”
She said it with a timid and ingratiating smile; again I didn’t understand and interrupted her:
“By the way, do you know, mama, that the case between Andrei Petrovich and the Sokolskys was decided today in court?”
“Ah, I know!” she exclaimed, pressing her hands together fearfully in front of her (her gesture).
“Today?” Tatyana Pavlovna gave a great start. “But it can’t be, he would have told us. Did he tell you?” she turned to my mother.
“Ah, no, not that it was today, he didn’t tell me about that. I’ve been so afraid all week. Even if he loses, I’d pray only so as to have it off our shoulders and be as we were before.”
“So he didn’t tell you either, mama!” I exclaimed. “What a fellow! There’s an example of his indifference and haughtiness; what did I just tell you?”
“Decided how, how was it decided? And who told you?” Tatyana Pavlovna flung herself about. “Speak!”
“But here’s the man himself! Maybe he’ll tell us,” I announced, hearing his footsteps in the corridor, and quickly sat down near Liza.
“Brother, for God’s sake, spare mama, be patient with Andrei Petrovich . . .” my sister whispered to me.
“I will, I will, I came back with that in mind.” I pressed her hand.
Liza looked at me very mistrustfully, and she was right.
II
HE CAME IN very pleased with himself, so pleased that he didn’t find it necessary to conceal his state of mind. And in general he had become accustomed, lately, to opening himself up before us without the least ceremony, and not only to the bad in him, but even to the ridiculous, something everyone is afraid of; yet he was fully aware that we would understand everything to the last little jot. In the past year, by Tatyana Pavlovna’s observation, he had gone very much to seed in his dress; his clothes were always decent, but old and without refinement. It’s true that he was prepared to wear the same linen for two days, which even made mother upset; they considered it a sacrifice, and this whole group of devoted women looked upon it as outright heroism. The hats he wore were always soft, wide-brimmed, black; when he took his hat off in the doorway, the whole shock of his very thick but much-graying hair just sprang up on his head. I always liked looking at his hair when he took his hat off.
“Hello. Everybody’s gathered, even including him? I could hear his voice in the front hall—denouncing me, it seems?”
One of the signs that he was in a merry mood was that he began sharpening his wit on me. I didn’t reply, naturally. Lukerya came in with a whole bag of purchases and put it on the table.
“Victory, Tatyana Pavlovna! The suit is won, and, of course, the princes won’t decide to appeal. The case is mine! I at once found where to borrow a thousand roubles. Sofya, put your work down, don’t strain your eyes. Just home from work, Liza?”
“Yes, papa,” Liza replied with an affectionate look. She called him father; I wouldn’t submit to that for anything.
“Tired?”
“Yes.”
“Leave work, don’t go tomorrow; and drop it completely.”
“It’s worse for me that way, papa.”
“I ask you to . . . I dislike it terribly when women work, Tatyana Pavlovna.”
“How can they be without work? As if a woman shouldn’t work! . . .”
“I know, I know, that’s all splendid and right, and I agree beforehand; but—I mean hand work mainly. Imagine, it seems to be one of my morbid, or, better, one of my incorrect impressions from childhood. In the vague memories from when I was five or six years old, I most often remember—with disgust, of course—a conclave of clever women at a round table, stern and severe, scissors, fabrics, patterns, and a fashion plate. They all divine and opine, shaking their heads slowly and gravely, measuring and calculating, as they prepare for the cutting out. All those affectionate faces, which love me so much, suddenly become unapproachable. If I should start acting up, I’d be taken away at once. Even my poor nanny, who holds me with one hand and doesn’t respond to my crying and pulling, is mesmerized, gazing and listening as if to a bird of paradise. It’s that sternness of clever faces and gravity before the start of cutting out that I find it painful to picture, for some reason, even now. You, Tatyana Pavlovna, are terribly fond of cutting out! Aristocratic as it may be, I still much prefer a woman who doesn’t work at all. Don’t take it to your own account, Sofya . . . Not that you could! A woman is a great power even without that. However, you know that, too, Sonya. What’s your opinion, Arkady Makarovich? You probably protest?”
“No, not really,” I replied. “It’s particularly well put, that a woman is a great power, though I don’t know why you connect it with work. And that one can’t help working when one has no money—you know yourself.”
“But now it’s enough,” he turned to my mother, who was beaming all over (when he addressed me, she gave a start), “at least for right now, I don’t want to see any hand work, I ask for my own sake. You, Arkady, as a youth of our time, are surely a bit of a socialist. Well, would you believe it, my friend, those who have the greatest love of idleness are from the eternally laboring people!”
“Maybe not idleness, but rest.”
“No, precisely idleness, total do-nothingness, that’s the ideal! I knew one eternally laboring man, though not from the people; he was a rather developed man and able to generalize. All his life, maybe every day, he dreamed passionately and sweetly of the most total idleness, carrying his ideal to the absolute—to the boundless independence, to the eternal freedom of dreaming and idle contemplation. It went on like that till he broke down completely at work. He couldn’t mend; he died in the hospital. I’m sometimes seriously ready to conclude that the notion of the delights of labor was thought up by idle people, of the virtuous sort, naturally. It’s one of those ‘Geneva ideas’ from the end of the last century. 33Tatyana Pavlovna, two days ago I cut out an advertisement from the newspaper. Here it is.” He took a scrap of paper from his waistcoat pocket. “It’s from one of those endless students, who know classical languages and mathematics and are ready to relocate, live in a garret, or anywhere. Now listen: ‘Female teacher prepares for all institutions of learning’ (for all, listen to that) ‘and gives lessons in arithmetic’—just one line, but a classic! Prepares for institutions of learning—of course, that also means in arithmetic? No, she mentions arithmetic separately. This—this is pure starvation, this is the ultimate degree of need. The touching thing here is precisely this lack of skilclass="underline" obviously she never prepared herself to be a teacher, and is hardly able to teach anything. But it’s either drown herself, or drag her last rouble to the newspaper and advertise that she prepares for all institutions of learning and, on top of that, gives lessons in arithmetic. Per tutto mondo e in altri siti.” 20