‘So, Adam and Eve had two sons’, Laptev said. ‘Good, but what were their names? Please try and remember.’
Grim-faced as ever, Lida gazed silently at the table and just moved her lips. But her elder sister Sasha peered into her face and suffered torments.
‘You know it very well, only you mustn’t be so nervous’, Laptev said. ‘Well now, what were Adam’s sons called?’
‘Abel and Cabel’, Lida whispered.
‘Cain and Abel’, Laptev corrected.
A large tear trickled down Lida’s cheek and dropped on to the book. Sasha looked down and blushed, on the verge of tears too. Laptev didn’t have the heart to say anything and he gulped back the tears. He got up from the table and lit a cigarette. Just then Kochevoy came down with a newspaper. The little girls stood up and curtsied without looking at him.
‘For heaven’s sake, Kostya, you try and teach them’, Laptev said. ‘I’m afraid I’ll burst out crying as well and I must call at the warehouse before lunch.’
‘All right.’
Aleksey Fyodorych left. Frowning, with a very serious expression, Kostya sat at the table and drew the Bible over to him. ‘Well’, he asked, ‘what are you doing now?’
‘She knows all about the Flood’, Sasha said.
‘The Flood? Good, we’ll give that a good bash then. Let’s do the Flood.’
Kostya ran through the brief account of the Flood in the Bible and said, ‘I must point out that no flood like this ever took place. And there wasn’t any Noah. Several thousand years before Christ was born there was an extraordinary inundation of the earth which is mentioned not only in the Hebrew Bible, but also in the books of other ancient peoples such as the Greeks, Chaldees and Hindus. No matter what kind of inundation this may have been, it couldn’t have flooded the whole earth. Okay, the plains were flooded, but the mountains remained, you can be sure of that. Carry on reading your little book if you like, but don’t put too much faith in it.’
Lida’s tears flowed again. She turned away and suddenly started sobbing so loudly that Kostya shuddered and rose from his chair in great confusion.
‘I want to go home’, she said. ‘To Papa and Nanny.’
Sasha cried too. Kostya went up to his room and telephoned Julia Sergeyevna. ‘The girls are crying again, my dear. It’s quite impossible!’
Julia Sergeyevna came running across from the main house, just in her dress and with a knitted scarf. Half-frozen, she comforted the girls.
‘Believe me, you must believe me’, she pleaded, pressing first one, then the other to her. ‘Your Papa is coming today, he’s sent a telegram. You’re sad about your Mama. So am I. My heart is breaking. But what can one do? You can’t go against what God has willed!’
When they had stopped crying, she wrapped them up and took them for a cab ride. First they drove down Little Dmitrovka Street, then past Strastnoy Boulevard25 to the Tver Road. They stopped at the Iverian Chapel26 and each of them placed a candle there and knelt in prayer. On the way back they called at Filippov’s27 and bought some lenten poppy-seed rolls.
The Laptevs usually had lunch between two and three, with Pyotr serving at table. During the day this same Pyotr would run errands to the post office, then to the warehouse, or the local court for Kostya, and helped out with lots of jobs. In the evening he packed cigarettes, at night he would run back and forwards to open the door, and after four o’clock in the morning would see to the stoves: no one knew when he actually slept. He loved opening bottles of soda water, which he did easily, noiselessly, without spilling a drop.
‘Cheers!’ Kostya said, drinking a glass of vodka before his soup.
Julia Sergeyevna had at first taken a dislike to Kostya, his deep voice, the crude expressions he would come out with, such as ‘clear off’, ‘sock on the jaw’, ‘dregs of humanity’, ‘ginger up the samovar’, as well as his habit of waxing sentimental after vodka. All of it seemed so trite. But after she knew him better she began to feel much more at ease with him. He was quite open with her, loved a quiet talk in the evenings, and even let her borrow novels that he had written himself and which up to now had been kept a complete secret – even from friends like Laptev and Yartsev. She would read and praise them in order not to upset him, which pleased him, since he had aspirations of becoming a famous writer – sooner or later. He wrote only about the countryside and manor houses, although he saw the country very seldom, when he was visiting friends in their holiday villas. Only once in his life had he stayed on a country estate, when he had gone to Volokolamsk28 on some legal business. Avoiding any love interest, as if ashamed of it, he filled his novels with nature descriptions and showed a great partiality for expressions such as ‘the hills’ intricate outlines’, ‘quaint shapes of clouds’ and ‘chord of mysterious harmonies’. No one published his novels, for which he blamed the censorship.
He liked being a barrister, but he considered novels, not legal work, his true vocation in life. He felt that he possessed a subtle, artistic make-up and constantly felt drawn to the fine arts. He didn’t sing, nor did he play an instrument, and he had no ear at all for music. However, he went to all the symphony and philharmonic concerts, organized charity performances and kept company with singers.
During lunch they talked. ‘It’s really amazing’, Laptev said. ‘My brother Fyodor’s completely stumped me again! He says we must find out when our firm’s going to celebrate its centenary, so that we can apply to become gentlefolk. He’s really serious! What’s happening to him? To be honest, it worries me.’
They discussed Fyodor and the current fashion for self-dramatization. Fyodor, for example, was trying to act the simple merchant, although he wasn’t one any more, and when the teacher came from the school (where old Laptev was a governor) for his salary, he would even alter his walk and speech, behaving as if he were the teacher’s superior officer.
After lunch there was nothing to do, so they went into the study. They discussed the Decadent Movement and the Maid of Orleans.29 Kostya delivered a whole monologue and felt that he gave a very good imitation of Marya Yermolov.30 Then they sat down to cards. The little girls didn’t return to the lodge. Instead, they sat there, pale-faced and sad, in the same armchair, listening to the street noises and trying to hear if their father was coming. They felt miserable in the dark evenings, when candles were alight. The conversation over cards, Pyotr’s footsteps, the crackle in the fireplace – all this irritated them and they didn’t want to look at the fire. In the evenings they didn’t even feel like crying, and were uneasy and heavy at heart. They couldn’t understand how people could talk and laugh when Mother had died.
‘What did you see today through your binoculars?’ Julia Sergeyevna asked Kostya.
‘Nothing. But yesterday the old Frenchman himself took a bath.’
At seven o’clock Julia Sergeyevna and Kostya went off to the Maly Theatre. Laptev stayed behind with the girls.
‘It’s time your father was here’, he said, glancing at his watch. ‘The train must be late.’
The girls sat silently in the chair, snuggling close to each other like tiny animals feeling the cold, while Laptev kept pacing the rooms, looking impatiently at his watch. The house was quiet, but just before nine someone rang the bell. Pyotr went to open the door.
When they heard that familiar voice the girls shrieked, burst out sobbing and ran into the hall. Panaurov was wearing a splendid fur coat and his beard and moustache were white with frost.
‘Just a moment, just a moment’, he muttered while Sasha and Lida, sobbing and laughing, kissed his cold hands, his cap, his fur coat.
A handsome, languid sort of man who had been spoilt by love, he unhurriedly caressed the girls and went into the study. Rubbing his hands he said, ‘It’s only a brief visit, my dear friends. Tomorrow I’m off to St Petersburg. I’ve been promised a transfer to another city.’
He was staying at the Dresden Hotel.31
X
Ivan Gavrilych Yartsev was a frequent visi
tor at the Laptevs’. He was a sturdy, strongly-built, black-haired man with a clever, pleasant face. People thought him handsome, but recently he’d put on weight, which spoilt his face and figure, as did the way he had his hair cut very short, almost to the scalp. At one time his fellow-students at university called him ‘Muscle Man’, on account of his strength and powerful build.
He had graduated from the arts faculty together with the Laptev brothers and had then changed to science; he had a master’s degree in chemistry. Without any aspirations to a professorship, he had never been a laboratory assistant even, but taught physics and zoology at a boys’ secondary school and at two high schools for girls. Thrilled with his students – especially the girls – he used to say that a remarkable generation was growing up. Besides chemistry, he also studied sociology and Russian history at home and his short papers were sometimes published in newspapers and learned journals under the signature ‘Ya’. Whenever he talked about botany or zoology, he resembled a historian; when he was trying to settle some historical problem, he looked like a scientist.
Kish, who was nicknamed the ‘eternal student’, was also a close friend of the Laptevs. He had studied medicine for three years, then had changed to mathematics, taking two years for each year of the course. His father, a provincial pharmacist, sent him forty roubles a month, and his mother (unbeknown to the father) sent him ten. This money sufficed for everyday expenses and was even enough for luxuries such as an overcoat with Polish beaver trimmings, gloves, scent and photography – he often had his portrait done and sent copies around to his friends. Neat, slightly balding, with golden whiskers around the ears, he was a modest man, who always seemed ready to oblige. He was forever helping others, running round collecting subscriptions, freezing at dawn outside a theatre box-office to buy a ticket for a lady friend. Or he would go and order a wreath or bouquet at someone’s command. All one heard about him was: ‘Kish will fetch it’, or ‘Kish will do it’, or ‘Kish will buy it’. He usually made a mess of the errands, for which he was showered with reproaches. People often forgot to pay him for purchases. But he never said a word, and in particularly ticklish situations all he would do was sigh. He was never very pleased, never annoyed and he was always telling long, boring stories: his jokes invariably made people laugh, but only because they weren’t at all funny. Once, for example, trying to be witty, he told Pyotr, ‘You are not a sturgeon.’32 Everyone burst out laughing and he himself couldn’t stop laughing, so pleased he was with his highly successful joke. At professors’ funerals he liked walking in front, with the torch-bearers.
Yartsev and Kish usually came over for tea in the afternoon. If the master and mistress weren’t going out to the theatre or a concert the tea would drag on until supper-time. One evening in February the following conversation took place in the dining-room:
‘Works of art are only significant and useful when they are concerned with some serious social problem’, Kostya said, angrily looking at Yartsev. ‘If there’s some protest against serfdom in a book, or if the author takes up arms against high society and all its vulgarity, then that work is significant and useful. But novels and short stories which contain nothing but moaning and groaning, about her falling in love with him, or him falling out of love with her – I maintain those types of work are worthless and to hell with them.’
‘I agree with you, Konstantin Ivanych’, Julia Sergeyevna said. ‘One writer will describe a lover’s assignation, another a betrayal, another a meeting after separation. Surely there are other things to write about, aren’t there? There’s lots of sick, unhappy, wretchedly poor people who must feel revolted when they read all that stuff.’
Laptev didn’t like it when his wife, a young woman, not yet twenty-two, argued so seriously, so coolly, about love. But he guessed the reason for it.
‘If poetry doesn’t solve problems that strike you as important’, Yartsev said, ‘then you’d better turn to technical books, to criminal and financial law. You should read scientific papers. There’s no point at all in Romeo and Juliet containing discussions about freedom of education or disinfecting prisons if you can find it all in specialized articles or reference books.’
‘But that’s going too far, old chap’, Kostya interrupted. ‘We’re not discussing giants like Shakespeare or Goethe, we’re talking about a hundred or so talented or less talented writers who’d be a lot more use if they steered clear of love and concentrated on bringing knowledge and humane ideals to the masses.’
Talking slightly through his nose and burring his r’s, Kish began to relate the plot of a story he had recently read. He gave a detailed account and took his time. Three minutes passed, then five, then ten, but he rambled on and on, and no one had the faintest idea what he was talking about. His face became more and more apathetic, his eyes grew dim.
Julia Sergeyevna could stand it no longer and said, ‘Come on, Kish, make it short! It’s sheer torment!’
‘Pack it in, Kish’, Kostya shouted.
Everyone laughed – including Kish.
In came Fyodor. He had red blotches on his face. Hurriedly, he greeted them all and led his brother into the study. Recently he had been avoiding large gatherings, preferring the company of just one person.
‘Let those young people laugh, you and I must have a heart-to-heart’, he said, settling into a deep armchair away from the lamp. ‘When were you last in the warehouse? I should think it must be a week now.’
‘Yes, there’s nothing for me to do and I must confess I’m sick and tired of the old man.’
‘Of course, they can cope without you and me in the warehouse, but you must have some sort of occupation. “In the sweat of thy face33 shalt thou eat bread” as it is said. God likes hard-working people.’
Pyotr brought in a glass of tea on a tray. Fyodor drank it without sugar and asked for some more. He liked to drink a lot of tea and could polish off ten glasses in an evening.
‘Do you know what, old man?’ he said, getting up and going over to his brother. ‘Why don’t you just stand as candidate for the city council? We’ll gradually get you on to the board and after that you’ll be deputy mayor. The further you go, the bigger you’ll be. You’re an intelligent, educated man. They’ll take notice of you, they’ll invite you to St Petersburg. Local and municipal officials are in fashion there now. Before you know it you’ll be a privy councillor with a ribbon over your shoulder – before you’re fifty.’
Laptev didn’t reply. He realized that Fyodor himself had set his heart on promotion to privy councillor, on wearing a ribbon, and he was at a loss for an answer.
The brothers sat in silence. Fyodor opened his watch and scrutinized it for an interminably long time, as if he wanted to check that the hands were moving correctly. His expression struck Laptev as peculiar.
They were called in to supper. Laptev entered the dining-room, while Fyodor remained in the study. The argument had finished and Yartsev was speaking like a professor delivering a lecture.
‘Because of differences of climate, energy, tastes and age, equality among people is a physical impossibility. But civilized man can render this inequality harmless, just as he has done with swamps and bears. One scientist has succeeded in getting a cat, a mouse, a falcon and a sparrow to eat from the same bowl. So we can only hope that education can achieve the same with human beings. Life is forever marching on, we are witnesses to the great progress that culture is making, and obviously the time will come when the present condition of factory workers, for example, will strike us as just as absurd as serfdom – when girls were exchanged for dogs – does now.’
‘That won’t be soon, all that’s a long way off’, Kostya laughed. ‘It’ll be a long time before Rothschild will think that his vaults with all their gold are absurd and until then the worker will have to bend his back and starve till his belly swells. No, old man, we mustn’t stand doing nothing, we must fight. If a cat eats from the same saucer as a mouse would you say it does it from a sense of community? Never. Bec
ause it was forced to.’
‘Fyodor and I are rich, our father’s a capitalist, a millionaire, so it’s us you have to fight!’ Laptev said, wiping his forehead with his palm. ‘A battle against myself – that’s what I find so hard to accept! I’m rich, but what has money given me up to now? What has this power brought me? In what way am I happier than you? My childhood was sheer purgatory and money never saved me from birching. Money didn’t help Nina when she fell ill and was dying. If I’m not loved I can’t force anyone to love me, even if I were to spend a hundred million.’
‘On the other hand you can do a lot of good’, Kish said.
‘What do you mean by good? Yesterday you asked me to help some musician looking for work. Believe me, I can do as little for him as you can. I can give him money, but that’s not what he’s after, is it? Once I asked a well-known musician to find a position for an impecunious violinist and all he said was, “You only turned to me for help because you’re not a musician yourself.” So I’m offering you the same answer: you feel so confident when you ask me for help precisely because you’ve never known what it’s like to be rich yourself.’
‘But why this comparison with a famous musician?’ Julia said, blushing. ‘What’s a famous musician got to do with it?’
Her face quivered with rage and she lowered her eyes to hide her feelings. However, her expression was understood not only by her husband, but by everyone sitting at the table.
‘What’s a famous musician got to do with it?’ she repeated softly. ‘There’s nothing easier than helping the poor.’
Silence followed. Pyotr served hazel-grouse. No one ate any, however – they just had some salad. Now Laptev couldn’t remember what he’d said, but he saw quite clearly that it wasn’t his words that made her hate him, but the mere fact that he had joined in the conversation.