“He is studying the marine fauna.”
“No, no, brother, no!” Laevsky sighed. “A scientific man who was on the steamer told me the Black Sea was poor in animal life, and that in its depths, thanks to the abundance of sulphuric hydrogen, organic life was impossible. All the serious zoologists work at the biological station at Naples or Villefranche. But Von Koren is independent and obstinate: he works on the Black Sea because nobody else is working there; he is at loggerheads with the university, does not care to know his comrades and other scientific men because he is first of all a despot and only secondly a zoologist. And you’ll see he’ll do something. He is already dreaming that when he comes back from his expedition he will purify our universities from intrigue and mediocrity, and will make the scientific men mind their ps and qs. Despotism is just as strong in science as in the army. And he is spending his second summer in this stinking little town because he would rather be first in a village than second in a town. Here he is a king and an eagle; he keeps all the inhabitants under his thumb and oppresses them with his authority. He has appropriated every one, he meddles in other people’s affairs; everything is of use to him, and every one is afraid of him. I am slipping out of his clutches, he feels that and hates me. Hasn’t he told you that I ought to be destroyed or sent to hard labour?”
“Yes,” laughed Samoylenko.
Laevsky laughed too, and drank some wine.
“His ideals are despotic too,” he said, laughing, and biting a peach. “Ordinary mortals think of their neighbour—me, you, man in fact—if they work for the common weal. To Von Koren men are puppets and nonentities, too trivial to be the object of his life. He works, will go for his expedition and break his neck there, not for the sake of love for his neighbour, but for the sake of such abstractions as humanity, future generations, an ideal race of men. He exerts himself for the improvement of the human race, and we are in his eyes only slaves, food for the cannon, beasts of burden; some he would destroy or stow away in Siberia, others he would break by discipline, would, like Araktcheev, force them to get up and go to bed to the sound of the drum; would appoint eunuchs to preserve our chastity and morality, would order them to fire at any one who steps out of the circle of our narrow conservative morality; and all this in the name of the improvement of the human race. . . . And what is the human race? Illusion, mirage . . . despots have always been illusionists. I understand him very well, brother. I appreciate him and don’t deny his importance; this world rests on men like him, and if the world were left only to such men as us, for all our good-nature and good intentions, we should make as great a mess of it as the flies have of that picture. Yes.”
Laevsky sat down beside Samoylenko, and said with genuine feeling: “I’m a foolish, worthless, depraved man. The air I breathe, this wine, love, life in fact—for all that, I have given nothing in exchange so far but lying, idleness, and cowardice. Till now I have deceived myself and other people; I have been miserable about it, and my misery was cheap and common. I bow my back humbly before Von Koren’s hatred because at times I hate and despise myself.”
Laevsky began again pacing from one end of the room to the other in excitement, and said:
“I’m glad I see my faults clearly and am conscious of them. That will help me to reform and become a different man. My dear fellow, if only you knew how passionately, with what anguish, I long for such a change. And I swear to you I’ll be a man! I will! I don’t know whether it is the wine that is speaking in me, or whether it really is so, but it seems to me that it is long since I have spent such pure and lucid moments as I have just now with you.”
“It’s time to sleep, brother,” said Samoylenko.
“Yes, yes. . . . Excuse me; I’ll go directly.”
Laevsky moved hurriedly about the furniture and windows, looking for his cap.
“Thank you,” he muttered, sighing. “Thank you. . . . Kind and friendly words are better than charity. You have given me new life.”
He found his cap, stopped, and looked guiltily at Samoylenko.
“Alexandr Daviditch,” he said in an imploring voice.
“What is it?”
“Let me stay the night with you, my dear fellow!”
“Certainly. . . . Why not?”
Laevsky lay down on the sofa, and went on talking to the doctor for a long time.
X
Three days after the picnic, Marya Konstantinovna unexpectedly called on Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and without greeting her or taking off her hat, seized her by both hands, pressed them to her breast and said in great excitement:
“My dear, I am deeply touched and moved: our dear kind-hearted doctor told my Nikodim Alexandritch yesterday that your husband was dead. Tell me, my dear . . . tell me, is it true?”
“Yes, it’s true; he is dead,” answered Nadyezhda Fyodorovna.
“That is awful, awful, my dear! But there’s no evil without some compensation; your husband was no doubt a noble, wonderful, holy man, and such are more needed in Heaven than on earth.”
Every line and feature in Marya Konstantinovna’s face began quivering as though little needles were jumping up and down under her skin; she gave an almond-oily smile and said, breathlessly, enthusiastically:
“And so you are free, my dear. You can hold your head high now, and look people boldly in the face. Henceforth God and man will bless your union with Ivan Andreitch. It’s enchanting. I am trembling with joy, I can find no words. My dear, I will give you away. . . . Nikodim Alexandritch and I have been so fond of you, you will allow us to give our blessing to your pure, lawful union. When, when do you think of being married?”
“I haven’t thought of it,” said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, freeing her hands.
“That’s impossible, my dear. You have thought of it, you have.”
“Upon my word, I haven’t,” said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, laughing. “What should we be married for? I see no necessity for it. We’ll go on living as we have lived.”
“What are you saying!” cried Marya Konstantinovna in horror. “For God’s sake, what are you saying!”
“Our getting married won’t make things any better. On the contrary, it will make them even worse. We shall lose our freedom.”
“My dear, my dear, what are you saying!” exclaimed Marya Konstantinovna, stepping back and flinging up her hands. “You are talking wildly! Think what you are saying. You must settle down!”
“ ‘Settle down.’ How do you mean? I have not lived yet, and you tell me to settle down.”
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna reflected that she really had not lived. She had finished her studies in a boarding-school and had been married to a man she did not love; then she had thrown in her lot with Laevsky, and had spent all her time with him on this empty, desolate coast, always expecting something better. Was that life?
“I ought to be married though,” she thought, but remembering Kirilin and Atchmianov she flushed and said:
“No, it’s impossible. Even if Ivan Andreitch begged me to on his knees—even then I would refuse.”
Marya Konstantinovna sat on the sofa for a minute in silence, grave and mournful, gazing fixedly into space; then she got up and said coldly:
“Good-bye, my dear! Forgive me for having troubled you. Though it’s not easy for me, it’s my duty to tell you that from this day all is over between us, and, in spite of my profound respect for Ivan Andreitch, the door of my house is closed to you henceforth.”