your fault;
and besides . . . one ought to be above conventional prejudices and rise
to the level of modern ideas. I believe in free love myself, yes. . . . But
to my thinking, once you have settled together, you ought to go on
living together all your life."
"Without love?"
"I will tell you directly," said Samoylenko. "Eight years ago there was
an old fellow, an agent, here--a man of very great intelligence. Well, he
used to say that the great thing in married life was patience. Do you
hear, Vanya? Not love, but patience. Love cannot last long. You have
lived two years in love, and now evidently your married life has
reached the period when, in order to preserve equilibrium, so to speak,
you ought to exercise all your patience. . . ."
"You believe in your old agent; to me his words are meaningless. Your
old man could be a hypocrite; he could exercise himself in the virtue of
patience, and, as he did so, look upon a person he did not love as an
object indispensable for his moral exercises; but I have not yet fallen so
low. If I want to exercise myself in patience, I will buy dumb-bells or a
frisky horse, but I'll leave human beings alone."
Samoylenko asked for some white wine with ice. When they had drunk
a glass each, Laevsky suddenly asked:
"Tell me, please, what is the meaning of softening of the brain?"
"How can I explain it to you? . . . It's a disease in which the brain
becomes softer . . . as it were, dissolves."
"Is it curable?"
"Yes, if the disease is not neglected. Cold douches, blisters. . . .
Something internal, too."
"Oh! . . . Well, you see my position; I can't live with her: it is more than
I can do. While I'm with you I can be philosophical about it and smile,
but at home I lose heart completely; I am so utterly miserable, that if I
were told, for instance, that I should have to live another month with
her, I should blow out my brains. At the same time, parting with her is
out of the question. She has no friends or relations; she cannot work,
and neither she nor I have any money. . . . What could become of her?
To whom could she go? There is nothing one can think of. . . . Come,
tell me, what am I to do?"
"H'm! . . ." growled Samoylenko, not knowing what to answer. "Does
she love you?"
"Yes, she loves me in so far as at her age and with her temperament she
wants a man. It would be as difficult for her to do without me as to do
without her powder or her curl-papers. I am for her an indispensable,
integral part of her boudoir."
Samoylenko was embarrassed.
"You are out of humour to-day, Vanya," he said. "You must have had a
bad night."
"Yes, I slept badly. . . . Altogether, I feel horribly out of sorts, brother.
My head feels empty; there's a sinking at my heart, a weakness. . . . I
must run away."
"Run where?"
"There, to the North. To the pines and the mushrooms, to people and
ideas. . . . I'd give half my life to bathe now in some little stream in the
province of Moscow or Tula; to feel chilly, you know, and then to stroll
for three hours even with the feeblest student, and to talk and talk
endlessly. . . . And the scent of the hay! Do you remember it? And in
the evening, when one walks in the garden, sounds of the piano float
from the house; one hears the train passing. . . ."
Laevsky laughed with pleasure; tears came into his eyes, and to cover
them, without getting up, he stretched across the next table for the
matches.
"I have not been in Russia for eighteen years," said Samoylenko. "I've
forgotten what it is like. To my mind, there is not a country more
splendid than the Caucasus."
"Vereshtchagin has a picture in which some men condemned to death
are languishing at the bottom of a very deep well. Your magnificent
Caucasus strikes me as just like that well. If I were offered the choice
of a chimney-sweep in Petersburg or a prince in the Caucasus, I should
choose the job of chimney-sweep."
Laevsky grew pensive. Looking at his stooping figure, at his eyes fixed
dreamily at one spot, at his pale, perspiring face and sunken temples, at
his bitten nails, at the slipper which had dropped off his heel,
displaying a badly darned sock, Samoylenko was moved to pity, and
probably because Laevsky reminded him of
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