The Schoolmistress and Other Stories

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All at once the horses stopped.

"Well, what is it now?" asked Startchenko crossly.

The coachman got down from the box without a word and began running
round the sledge, treading on his heels; he made larger and larger
circles, getting further and further away from the sledge, and it looked
as though he were dancing; at last he came back and began to turn off to
the right.

"You've got off the road, eh?" asked Startchenko.

"It's all ri-ight...."

Then there was a little village and not a single light in it. Again the
forest and the fields. Again they lost the road, and again the coachman
got down from the box and danced round the sledge. The sledge flew
along a dark avenue, flew swiftly on. And the heated trace horse's hoofs
knocked against the sledge. Here there was a fearful roaring sound from
the trees, and nothing could be seen, as though they were flying on into
space; and all at once the glaring light at the entrance and the windows
flashed upon their eyes, and they heard the good-natured, drawn-out
barking of dogs. They had arrived.

While they were taking off their fur coats and their felt boots below,
"Un Petit Verre de Clicquot" was being played upon the piano overhead,
and they could hear the children beating time with their feet.
Immediately on going in they were aware of the snug warmth and special
smell of the old apartments of a mansion where, whatever the weather
outside, life is so warm and clean and comfortable.

"That's capital!" said Von Taunitz, a fat man with an incredibly thick
neck and with whiskers, as he shook the examining magistrate's
hand. "That's capital! You are very welcome, delighted to make your
acquaintance. We are colleagues to some extent, you know. At one time I
was deputy prosecutor; but not for long, only two years. I came here to
look after the estate, and here I have grown old--an old fogey, in fact.
You are very welcome," he went on, evidently restraining his voice so as
not to speak too loud; he was going upstairs with his guests. "I have no
wife, she's dead. But here, I will introduce my daughters," and turning
round, he shouted down the stairs in a voice of thunder: "Tell Ignat to
have the sledge ready at eight o'clock to-morrow morning."

His four daughters, young and pretty girls, all wearing gray dresses and
with their hair done up in the same style, and their cousin, also young
and attractive, with her children, were in the drawingroom. Startchenko,
who knew them already, began at once begging them to sing something, and
two of the young ladies spent a long time declaring they could not sing
and that they had no music; then the cousin sat down to the piano, and
with trembling voices, they sang a duet from "The Queen of Spades."
Again "Un Petit Verre de Clicquot" was played, and the children skipped
about, beating time with their feet. And Startchenko pranced about too.
Everybody laughed.

Then the children said good-night and went off to bed. The examining
magistrate laughed, danced a quadrille, flirted, and kept wondering
whether it was not all a dream? The kitchen of the Zemstvo hut, the
heap of hay in the corner, the rustle of the beetles, the revolting
poverty-stricken surroundings, the voices of the witnesses, the wind,
the snow storm, the danger of being lost; and then all at once this
splendid, brightly lighted room, the sounds of the piano, the lovely
girls, the curly-headed children, the gay, happy laughter--such a
transformation seemed to him like a fairy tale, and it seemed incredible
that such transitions were possible at the distance of some two miles in
the course of one hour. And dreary thoughts prevented him from enjoying
himself, and he kept thinking this was not life here, but bits of life
fragments, that everything here was accidental, that one could draw no
conclusions from it; and he even felt sorry for these girls, who were
living and would end their lives in the wilds, in a province far away
from the center of culture, where nothing is accidental, but everything
is in accordance with reason and law, and where, for instance, every
suicide is intelligible, so that one can explain why it has happened and
what is its significance in the general scheme of things. He imagined
that if the life surrounding him here in the wilds were not intelligible
to him, and if he did not see it, it meant that it did not exist at all.

At supper the conversation turned on Lesnitsky

"He left a wife and child," said Startchenko. "I would forbid
neurasthenics and all people whose nervous system is out of order to
marry, I would deprive them of the right and possibility of multiplying
their kind. To bring into the world nervous, invalid children is a
crime."

"He was an unfortunate young man," said Von Taunitz, sighing gently and
shaking his head. "What a lot one must suffer and think about before
one brings oneself to take one's own life,... a young life! Such a
misfortune may happen in any family, and that is awful. It is hard to
bear such a thing, insufferable...."

And all the girls listened in silence with grave faces, looking at their
father. Lyzhin felt that he, too, must say something, but he couldn't
think of anything, and merely said:

"Yes, suicide is an undesirable phenomenon."

He slept in a warm room, in a soft bed covered with a quilt under
which there were fine clean sheets, but for some reason did not feel
comfortable: perhaps because the doctor and Von Taunitz were, for a long
time, talking in the adjoining room, and overhead he heard, through the
ceiling and in the stove, the wind roaring just as in the Zemstvo hut,
and as plaintively howling: "Oo-oo-oo-oo!"

Von Taunitz's wife had died two years before, and he was still unable
to resign himself to his loss and, whatever he was talking about, always
mentioned his wife; and there was no trace of a prosecutor left about
him now.

"Is it possible that I may some day come to such a condition?" thought
Lyzhin, as he fell asleep, still hearing through the wall his host's
subdued, as it were bereaved, voice.

The examining magistrate did not sleep soundly. He felt hot and
uncomfortable, and it seemed to him in his sleep that he was not at
Von Taunitz's, and not in a soft clean bed, but still in the hay at the
Zemstvo hut, hearing the subdued voices of the witnesses; he fancied
that Lesnitsky was close by, not fifteen paces away. In his dreams he
remembered how the insurance agent, black-haired and pale, wearing
dusty high boots, had come into the bookkeeper's office. "This is our
insurance agent...."

Then he dreamed that Lesnitsky and Loshadin the constable were walking
through the open country in the snow, side by side, supporting each
other; the snow was whirling about their heads, the wind was blowing on
their backs, but they walked on, singing: "We go on, and on, and
on...."

The old man was like a magician in an opera, and both of them were
singing as though they were on the stage:

"We go on, and on, and on!... You are in the warmth, in the light
and snugness, but we are walking in the frost and the storm, through the
deep snow.... We know nothing of ease, we know nothing of joy....
We bear all the burden of this life, yours and ours.... Oo-oo-oo! We
go on, and on, and on...."

Lyzhin woke and sat up in bed. What a confused, bad dream! And why did
he dream of the constable and the agent together? What nonsense! And now
while Lyzhin's heart was throbbing violently and he was sitting on his
bed, holding his head in his hands, it seemed to him that there really
was something in common between the lives of the insurance agent and the
constable. Don't they really go side by side holding each other up? Some
tie unseen, but significant and essential, existed between them, and
even between them and Von Taunitz and between all men--all men; in this
life, even in the remotest desert, nothing is accidental, everything
is full of one common idea, everything has one soul, one aim, and to
understand it it is not enough to think, it is not enough to reason, one
must have also, it seems, the gift of insight into life, a gift which is
evidently not bestowed on all. And the unhappy man who had broken
down, who had killed himself--the "neurasthenic," as the doctor called
him--and the old peasant who spent every day of his life going from one
man to another, were only accidental, were only fragments of life for
one who thought of his own life as accidental, but were parts of one
organism--marvelous and rational--for one who thought of his own life as
part of that universal whole and understood it. So thought Lyzhin, and
it was a thought that had long lain hidden in his soul, and only now it
was unfolded broadly and clearly to his consciousness.

He lay down and began to drop asleep; and again they were going along
together, singing: "We go on, and on, and on.... We take from life
what is hardest and bitterest in it, and we leave you what is easy and
joyful; and sitting at supper, you can coldly and sensibly discuss why
we suffer and perish, and why we are not as sound and as satisfied as
you."

What they were singing had occurred to his mind before, but the thought
was somewhere in the background behind his other thoughts, and flickered
timidly like a faraway light in foggy weather. And he felt that this
suicide and the peasant's sufferings lay upon his conscience, too; to
resign himself to the fact that these people, submissive to their fate,
should take up the burden of what was hardest and gloomiest in life--how
awful it was! To accept this, and to desire for himself a life full
of light and movement among happy and contented people, and to be
continually dreaming of such, means dreaming of fresh suicides of men
crushed by toil and anxiety, or of men weak and outcast whom people only
talk of sometimes at supper with annoyance or mockery, without going to
their help.... And again:

"We go on, and on, and on..." as though someone were beating with a
hammer on his temples.

He woke early in the morning with a headache, roused by a noise; in the
next room Von Taunitz was saying loudly to the doctor:

"It's impossible for you to go now. Look what's going on outside.
Don't argue, you had better ask the coachman; he won't take you in such
weather for a million."

"But it's only two miles," said the doctor in an imploring voice.

"Well, if it were only half a mile. If you can't, then you can't.
Directly you drive out of the gates it is perfect hell, you would be off
the road in a minute. Nothing will induce me to let you go, you can say
what you like."

"It's bound to be quieter towards evening," said the peasant who was
heating the stove.

And in the next room the doctor began talking of the rigorous climate
and its influence on the character of the Russian, of the long
winters which, by preventing movement from place to place, hinder
the intellectual development of the people; and Lyzhin listened with
vexation to these observations and looked out of window at the snow
drifts which were piled on the fence. He gazed at the white dust which
covered the whole visible expanse, at the trees which bowed their heads
despairingly to right and then to left, listened to the howling and the
banging, and thought gloomily:

"Well, what moral can be drawn from it? It's a blizzard and that is all
about it...."

At midday they had lunch, then wandered aimlessly about the house; they
went to the windows.

"And Lesnitsky is lying there," thought Lyzhin, watching the whirling
snow, which raced furiously round and round upon the drifts. "Lesnitsky
is lying there, the witnesses are waiting...."

They talked of the weather, saying that the snowstorm usually lasted
two days and nights, rarely longer. At six o'clock they had dinner, then
they played cards, sang, danced; at last they had supper. The day was
over, they went to bed.

In the night, towards morning, it all subsided. When they got up and
looked out of window, the bare willows with their weakly drooping
branches were standing perfectly motionless; it was dull and still, as
though nature now were ashamed of its orgy, of its mad nights, and the
license it had given to its passions. The horses, harnessed tandem, had
been waiting at the front door since five o'clock in the morning. When
it was fully daylight the doctor and the examining magistrate put on
their fur coats and felt boots, and, saying good-by to their host, went
out.

At the steps beside the coachman stood the familiar figure of the
constable, Ilya Loshadin, with an old leather bag across his shoulder
and no cap on his head, covered with snow all over, and his face was
red and wet with perspiration. The footman who had come out to help the
gentlemen and cover their legs looked at him sternly and said:

"What are you standing here for, you old devil? Get away!"

"Your honor, the people are anxious," said Loshadin, smiling naively all
over his face, and evidently pleased at seeing at last the people he
had waited for so long. "The people are very uneasy, the children are
crying.... They thought, your honor, that you had gone back to the
town again. Show us the heavenly mercy, our benefactors!..."

The doctor and the examining magistrate said nothing, got into the
sledge, and drove to Syrnya.




THE FIRST-CLASS PASSENGER

A FIRST-CLASS passenger who had just dined at the station and drunk a
little too much lay down on the velvet-covered seat, stretched himself
out luxuriously, and sank into a doze. After a nap of no more than five
minutes, he looked with oily eyes at his _vis-a-vis,_ gave a smirk, and
said:

"My father of blessed memory used to like to have his heels tickled by
peasant women after dinner. I am just like him, with this difference,
that after dinner I always like my tongue and my brains gently
stimulated. Sinful man as I am, I like empty talk on a full stomach.
Will you allow me to have a chat with you?"

"I shall be delighted," answered the _vis-a-vis._

"After a good dinner the most trifling subject is sufficient to arouse
devilishly great thoughts in my brain. For instance, we saw just now
near the refreshment bar two young men, and you heard one congratulate
the other on being celebrated. 'I congratulate you,' he said; 'you are
already a celebrity and are beginning to win fame.' Evidently actors or
journalists of microscopic dimensions. But they are not the point. The
question that is occupying my mind at the moment, sir, is exactly what
is to be understood by the word _fame_ or _charity_. What do you
think? Pushkin called fame a bright patch on a ragged garment; we all
understand it as Pushkin does--that is, more or less subjectively--but
no one has yet given a clear, logical definition of the word.... I
would give a good deal for such a definition!"

"Why do you feel such a need for it?"

"You see, if we knew what fame is, the means of attaining it might
also perhaps be known to us," said the first-class passenger, after a
moment's thought. "I must tell you, sir, that when I was younger I strove
after celebrity with every fiber of my being. To be popular was my
craze, so to speak. For the sake of it I studied, worked, sat up at
night, neglected my meals. And I fancy, as far as I can judge without
partiality, I had all the natural gifts for attaining it. To begin with,
I am an engineer by profession. In the course of my life I have built
in Russia some two dozen magnificent bridges, I have laid aqueducts
for three towns; I have worked in Russia, in England, in Belgium....
Secondly, I am the author of several special treatises in my own
line. And thirdly, my dear sir, I have from a boy had a weakness for
chemistry. Studying that science in my leisure hours, I discovered
methods of obtaining certain organic acids, so that you will find my
name in all the foreign manuals of chemistry. I have always been in the
service, I have risen to the grade of actual civil councilor, and I have
an unblemished record. I will not fatigue your attention by enumerating
my works and my merits, I will only say that I have done far more than
some celebrities. And yet here I am in my old age, I am getting ready
for my coffin, so to say, and I am as celebrated as that black dog
yonder running on the embankment."

"How can you tell? Perhaps you are celebrated."

"H'm! Well, we will test it at once. Tell me, have you ever heard the
name Krikunov?"

The _vis-a-vis_ raised his eyes to the ceiling, thought a minute, and
laughed.

"No, I haven't heard it,..." he said.

"That is my surname. You, a man of education, getting on in years, have
never heard of me--a convincing proof! It is evident that in my efforts
to gain fame I have not done the right thing at all: I did not know the
right way to set to work, and, trying to catch fame by the tail, got on
the wrong side of her."

"What is the right way to set to work?"

"Well, the devil only knows! Talent, you say? Genius? Originality? Not
a bit of it, sir!... People have lived and made a career side by side
with me who were worthless, trivial, and even contemptible compared with
me. They did not do one-tenth of the work I did, did not put themselves
out, were not distinguished for their talents, and did not make
an effort to be celebrated, but just look at them! Their names are
continually in the newspapers and on men's lips! If you are not tired of
listening I will illustrate it by an example. Some years ago I built
a bridge in the town of K. I must tell you that the dullness of that
scurvy little town was terrible. If it had not been for women and cards
I believe I should have gone out of my mind. Well, it's an old story:
I was so bored that I got into an affair with a singer. Everyone was
enthusiastic about her, the devil only knows why; to my thinking she
was--what shall I say?--an ordinary, commonplace creature, like lots
of others. The hussy was empty-headed, ill-tempered, greedy, and what's
more, she was a fool.

"She ate and drank a vast amount, slept till five o clock in the
afternoon--and I fancy did nothing else. She was looked upon as a
cocotte, and that was indeed her profession; but when people wanted to
refer to her in a literary fashion, they called her an actress and
a singer. I used to be devoted to the theatre, and therefore this
fraudulent pretense of being an actress made me furiously indignant. My
young lady had not the slightest right to call herself an actress or
a singer. She was a creature entirely devoid of talent, devoid of
feeling--a pitiful creature one may say. As far as I can judge she sang
disgustingly. The whole charm of her 'art' lay in her kicking up her
legs on every suitable occasion, and not being embarrassed when
people walked into her dressing-room. She usually selected translated
vaudevilles, with singing in them, and opportunities for disporting
herself in male attire, in tights. In fact it was--ough! Well, I ask
your attention. As I remember now, a public ceremony took place to
celebrate the opening of the newly constructed bridge. There was a
religious service, there were speeches, telegrams, and so on. I hung
about my cherished creation, you know, all the while afraid that my
heart would burst with the excitement of an author. Its an old story and
there's no need for false modesty, and so I will tell you that my bridge
was a magnificent work! It was not a bridge but a picture, a perfect
delight! And who would not have been excited when the whole town came to
the opening? 'Oh,' I thought, 'now the eyes of all the public will be
on me! Where shall I hide myself?' Well, I need not have worried myself,
sir--alas! Except the official personages, no one took the slightest
notice of me. They stood in a crowd on the river-bank, gazed like sheep
at the bridge, and did not concern themselves to know who had built
it. And it was from that time, by the way, that I began to hate our
estimable public--damnation take them! Well, to continue. All at once
the public became agitated; a whisper ran through the crowd,... a
smile came on their faces, their shoulders began to move. 'They must
have seen me,' I thought. A likely idea! I looked, and my singer, with a
train of young scamps, was making her way through the crowd. The eyes of
the crowd were hurriedly following this procession. A whisper began in a
thousand voices: 'That's so-and-so.... Charming! Bewitching!' Then it
was they noticed me.... A couple of young milksops, local amateurs
of the scenic art, I presume, looked at me, exchanged glances,
and whispered: 'That's her lover!' How do you like that? And an
unprepossessing individual in a top-hat, with a chin that badly needed
shaving, hung round me, shifting from one foot to the other, then turned
to me with the words:

"'Do you know who that lady is, walking on the other bank? That's
so-and-so.... Her voice is beneath all criticism, but she has a most
perfect mastery of it!...'

"'Can you tell me,' I asked the unprepossessing individual, 'who built
this bridge?'

"'I really don't know,' answered the individual; some engineer, I
expect.'

"'And who built the cathedral in your town?' I asked again.

"'I really can't tell you.'

"Then I asked him who was considered the best teacher in K., who the
best architect, and to all my questions the unprepossessing individual
answered that he did not know.

"'And tell me, please,' I asked in conclusion, with whom is that singer
living?'

"'With some engineer called Krikunov.'

"Well, how do you like that, sir? But to proceed. There are no
minnesingers or bards nowadays, and celebrity is created almost
exclusively by the newspapers. The day after the dedication of the
bridge, I greedily snatched up the local _Messenger,_ and looked for
myself in it. I spent a long time running my eyes over all the four
pages, and at last there it was--hurrah! I began reading: 'Yesterday in
beautiful weather, before a vast concourse of people, in the presence
of His Excellency the Governor of the province, so-and-so, and other
dignitaries, the ceremony of the dedication of the newly constructed
bridge took place,' and so on.... Towards the end: Our talented
actress so-and-so, the favorite of the K. public, was present at the
dedication looking very beautiful. I need not say that her arrival
created a sensation. The star was wearing...' and so on. They might
have given me one word! Half a word. Petty as it seems, I actually cried
with vexation!

"I consoled myself with the reflection that the provinces are stupid,
and one could expect nothing of them and for celebrity one must go
to the intellectual centers--to Petersburg and to Moscow. And as it
happened, at that very time there was a work of mine in Petersburg which
I had sent in for a competition. The date on which the result was to be
declared was at hand.

"I took leave of K. and went to Petersburg. It is a long journey from
K. to Petersburg, and that I might not be bored on the journey I took a
reserved compartment and--well--of course, I took my singer. We set off,
and all the way we were eating, drinking champagne, and--tra-la--la! But
behold, at last we reach the intellectual center. I arrived on the very
day the result was declared, and had the satisfaction, my dear sir, of
celebrating my own success: my work received the first prize. Hurrah!
Next day I went out along the Nevsky and spent seventy kopecks on
various newspapers. I hastened to my hotel room, lay down on the sofa,
and, controlling a quiver of excitement, made haste to read. I ran
through one newspaper--nothing. I ran through a second--nothing either;
my God! At last, in the fourth, I lighted upon the following paragraph:
'Yesterday the well-known provincial actress so-and-so arrived by
express in Petersburg. We note with pleasure that the climate of the
South has had a beneficial effect on our fair friend; her charming stage
appearance...' and I don't remember the rest! Much lower down than
that paragraph I found, printed in the smallest type: first prize in the
competition was adjudged to an engineer called so-and-so.' That was
all! And to make things better, they even misspelt my name: instead of
Krikunov it was Kirkutlov. So much for your intellectual center! But
that was not all.... By the time I left Petersburg, a month later,
all the newspapers were vying with one another in discussing our
incomparable, divine, highly talented actress, and my mistress was
referred to, not by her surname, but by her Christian name and her
father's....

"Some years later I was in Moscow. I was summoned there by a letter, in
the mayor's own handwriting, to undertake a work for which Moscow, in
its newspapers, had been clamoring for over a hundred years. In
the intervals of my work I delivered five public lectures, with a
philanthropic object, in one of the museums there. One would have
thought that was enough to make one known to the whole town for three
days at least, wouldn't one? But, alas! not a single Moscow gazette
said a word about me There was something about houses on fire, about
an operetta, sleeping town councilors, dr unken shop keepers--about
everything; but about my work, my plans, my lectures--mum. And a nice
set they are in Moscow! I got into a tram.... It was packed full;
there were ladies and military men and students of both sexes, creatures
of all sorts in couples.