On the Eve | Page 5

whole of his clumsy person bore the stamp of
good-breeding; and his face, plain and even a little ridiculous as it was,
showed a kindly nature and a thoughtful habit. His name was Andrei
Petrovitch Bersenyev; his companion, the fair-haired young man, was
called Pavel Yakovlitch Shubin.
'Why don't you lie on your face, like me?' began Shubin. 'It's ever so
much nicer so; especially when you kick up your heels and clap them
together--like this. You have the grass under your nose; when you're
sick of staring at the landscape you can watch a fat beetle crawling on a
blade of grass, or an ant fussing about. It's really much nicer. But
you've taken up a pseudo-classical pose, for all the world like a
ballet-dancer, when she reclines upon a rock of paste-board. You

should remember you have a perfect right to take a rest now. It's no
joking matter to come out third! Take your ease, sir; give up all
exertion, and rest your weary limbs!'
Shubin delivered this speech through his nose in a half-lazy,
half-joking voice (spoilt children speak so to friends of the house who
bring them sweetmeats), and without waiting for an answer he went on:
'What strikes me most forcibly in the ants and beetles and other worthy
insects is their astounding seriousness. They run to and fro with such a
solemn air, as though their life were something of such importance! A
man the lord of creation, the highest being, stares at them, if you please,
and they pay no attention to him. Why, a gnat will even settle on the
lord of creation's nose, and make use of him for food. It's most
offensive. And, on the other hand, how is their life inferior to ours?
And why shouldn't they take themselves seriously, if we are to be
allowed to take ourselves seriously? There now, philosopher, solve that
problem for me! Why don't you speak? Eh?'
'What?' said Bersenyev, starting.
'What!' repeated Shubin. 'Your friend lays his deepest thoughts before
you, and you don't listen to him.'
'I was admiring the view. Look how hot and bright those fields are in
the sun.' Bersenyev spoke with a slight lisp.
'There's some fine colour laid on there,' observed Shubin. 'Nature's a
good hand at it, that's the fact!'
Bersenyev shook his head.
'You ought to be even more ecstatic over it than I. It's in your line:
you're an artist.'
'No; it's not in my line,' rejoined Shubin, putting his hat on the back of
his head. 'Flesh is my line; my work's with flesh--modelling flesh,
shoulders, legs, and arms, and here there's no form, no finish; it's all
over the place. . . . Catch it if you can.'
'But there is beauty here, too,' remarked Bersenyev.--'By the way, have
you finished your bas-relief?'
'Which one?'
'The boy with the goat.'
'Hang it! Hang it! Hang it!' cried Shubin, drawling--'I looked at the
genuine old things, the antiques, and I smashed my rubbish to pieces.
You point to nature, and say "there's beauty here, too." Of course,

there's beauty in everything, even in your nose there's beauty; but you
can't try after all kinds of beauty. The ancients, they didn't try after it;
beauty came down of itself upon their creations from somewhere or
other--from heaven, I suppose. The whole world belonged to them; it's
not for us to be so large in our reach; our arms are short. We drop our
hook into one little pool, and keep watch over it. If we get a bite, so
much the better, if not----'
Shubin put out his tongue.
'Stop, stop,' said Bensenyev, 'that's a paradox. If you have no sympathy
for beauty, if you do not love beauty wherever you meet it, it will not
come to you even in your art. If a beautiful view, if beautiful music
does not touch your heart; I mean, if you are not sympathetic----'
'Ah, you are a confirmed sympathetic!' broke in Shubin, laughing at the
new title he had coined, while Bersenyev sank into thought.
'No, my dear fellow,' Shubin went on, 'you're a clever person, a
philosopher, third graduate of the Moscow University; it's dreadful
arguing with you, especially for an ignoramus like me, but I tell you
what; besides my art, the only beauty I love is in women ... in girls, and
even that's recently.'
He turned over on to his back and clasped his hands behind his head.
A few instants passed by in silence. The hush of the noonday heat lay
upon the drowsy, blazing fields.
'Speaking of women,' Shubin began again, 'how is it no one looks after
Stahov? Did you see him in Moscow?'
'No.'
'The old fellow's gone clean off his head. He sits for whole days