‘And you reject medicine as well?’
‘Yes. Medicine might be necessary for the study of diseases as natural phenomena, but not for their treatment. If you want to cure people you shouldn’t treat the illness but its cause. Take away the main cause – physical labour – and there won’t be any more diseases. I don’t recognize the healing arts,’ I continued excitedly. ‘Genuine science and art don’t strive towards temporary, personal ends, but towards the universal and eternaclass="underline" they seek truth and the meaning of life, they seek God, the soul. But if you reduce them to the level of everyday needs, to the mundane, to dispensaries and libraries, they only complicate life and make it more difficult. We have loads of doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, lots of people who can read and write, but there’s a complete lack of biologists, mathematicians, philosophers and poets. One’s entire intellect, one’s entire spiritual energy has been used up satisfying transient, temporary needs. Scholars, writers and artists are working away – thanks to them life’s comforts increase with every day. Our physical needs multiply, whereas the truth is still far, far off and man still remains the most predatory and filthy of animals and everything conspires towards the larger part of mankind degenerating and losing its vitality. In such conditions an artist’s life has no meaning and the more talented he is the stranger and more incomprehensible his role, since, on closer inspection, it turns out that, by supporting the existing order, he’s working for the amusement of this rapacious, filthy animal. I don’t want to work … and I shan’t! I don’t need a thing, the whole world can go to hell!’
‘Missy dear, you’d better leave the room,’ Lida told her sister, evidently finding my words harmful for such a young girl.
Zhenya sadly looked at her sister and mother and went out.
‘People who want to justify their own indifference usually come out with such charming things,’ Lida said. ‘Rejecting hospitals and schools is easier than healing people or teaching.’
‘That’s true, Lida, that’s true,’ her mother agreed.
‘Now you’re threatening to give up working,’ Lida continued. ‘It’s obvious you value your painting very highly! But let’s stop arguing. We’ll never see eye to eye, since I value the most imperfect of these libraries or dispensaries – of which you spoke so contemptuously just now – more highly than all the landscapes in the world.’ Turning to her mother she immediately continued in an entirely different tone of voice: ‘The prince has grown much thinner, he’s changed dramatically since he was last with us. They’re sending him to Vichy.’6
She told her mother about the prince to avoid talking to me. Her face was burning and to hide her agitation she bent low over the table as if she were short-sighted, and pretended to be reading the paper. My company was disagreeable for them. I said goodbye and went home.
IV
It was quiet outside. The village on the far side of the pond was already asleep. Not a single light was visible, only the pale reflections of the stars faintly glimmered on the water. Zhenya stood motionless at the gates with the lions, waiting to see me off.
‘Everyone’s asleep in the village,’ I told her, trying to make out her face in the gloom – and I saw those dark, mournful eyes fixed on me. ‘The innkeeper and horse thieves are peacefully sleeping, while we respectable people quarrel and annoy one another.’
It was a sad August night – sad because there was already a breath of autumn in the air. The moon was rising, veiled by a crimson cloud and casting a dim light on the road and the dark fields of winter corn along its sides. There were many shooting stars. Zhenya walked along the road by my side, trying not to see the shooting stars, which frightened her for some reason.
‘I think you’re right,’ she said, trembling from the damp night air. ‘If people would only work together, if they could give themselves up to the life of the spirit they would soon know everything.’
‘Of course, we’re superior beings and if in fact we did recognize the full power of human genius and lived only for some higher end, then in the long run we’d all come to be like gods. But that will never happen – mankind will degenerate and not a trace of genius will remain.’
When we could no longer see the gates Zhenya stopped and hurriedly shook hands with me.
‘Good night,’ she said with a shudder. Only a thin blouse covered her shoulders and she huddled up from the cold. ‘Please come tomorrow!’
I was horrified at the prospect of being left alone and felt agitated and unhappy with myself and others. And I too tried not to look at the shooting stars.
‘Please stay a little longer,’ I said. ‘Please do!’
I loved Zhenya. I loved her – perhaps – for meeting me and seeing me off, for looking so tenderly and admiringly at me. Her pale face, her slender neck, her frailty, her idleness, her books – they were so moving in their beauty! And what about her mind? I suspected that she was extremely intelligent. The breadth of her views enchanted me, perhaps because she thought differently from the severe, pretty Lida, who disliked me. Zhenya liked me as an artist. I had won her heart with my talent and I longed to paint for her alone. I dreamt of her as my little queen who would hold sway with me over these trees, fields, this mist, sunset, over this exquisite, magical nature where I had so far felt hopelessly lonely and unwanted.
‘Please stay a little longer,’ I asked. ‘Please stay!’
I took off my coat and covered her chilled shoulders. Afraid that she might look silly and unattractive in a man’s coat, she threw it off – and then I embraced her and started showering her face, shoulders and arms with kisses.
‘Till tomorrow!’ she cried.
For about two minutes after that I could hear her running. I didn’t feel like going home and I had no reason for going there anyway. I stood and reflected for a moment and then slowly made my way back to have another look at that dear, innocent old house that seemed to be staring at me with its attic windows as if they were all-comprehending eyes. I walked past the terrace and sat down on a bench in the darkness under the old elm by the tennis court. In the windows of the attic storey where she slept a bright light suddenly shone, turning soft green when the lamp was covered with a shade. Shadows stirred. I was full of tenderness, calm and contentment – contentment because I had let myself be carried away and had fallen in love. And at the same time I was troubled by the thought that only a few steps away Lida lived in one of the rooms of that house – Lida, who disliked and possibly even hated me. I sat waiting for Zhenya to come out. I listened hard and people seemed to be talking in the attic storey.
About an hour passed. The green light went out and the shadows vanished. The moon stood high now over the house and illuminated the sleeping garden, the paths. Dahlias and roses in the flowerbeds in front of the house were clearly visible and all of them seemed the same colour. It became very cold. I left the garden, picked up my coat from the path and unhurriedly made my way home.
Next day, when I arrived at the Volchaninovs after dinner, the French windows into the garden were wide open. I sat for a while on the terrace, expecting Zhenya to appear any minute behind the flowerbed by the tennis court, or on one of the avenues – or her voice to come from one of the rooms. Then I went through the drawing-room and dining-room. There wasn’t a soul about. From the dining-room I walked down a long corridor to the hall and back. In the corridor there were several doors and through one of them I could hear Lida’s voice.