Virgin Soil | Page 7

aunt, and a
humpbacked sister. At the time of our story Paklin was twenty-eight
years old. He had a great many acquaintances among students and
young people, who liked him for his cynical wit, his harmless, though
biting, self-confident speeches, his one-sided, unpedantic, though
genuine, learning, but occasionally they sat on him severely. Once, on
arriving late at a political meeting, he hastily began excusing himself.
"Paklin was afraid!" some one sang out from a corner of the room, and
everyone laughed. Paklin laughed with them, although it was like a stab
in his heart. "He is right, the blackguard!" he thought to himself.

Nejdanov he had come across in a little Greek restaurant, where he was
in the habit of taking his dinner, and where he sat airing his rather free
and audacious views. He assured everyone that the main cause of his
democratic turn of mind was the bad Greek cooking, which upset his
liver.
"I wonder where our host has got to? " he repeated. "He has been out of
sorts lately. Heaven forbid that he should be in love!
Mashurina scowled.
"He has gone to the library for books. As for falling in love, he has
neither the time nor the opportunity."
"Why not with you?" almost escaped Paklin's lips.
"I should like to see him, because I have an important matter to talk
over with him," he said aloud.
"What about?" Ostrodumov asked. "Our affairs?"
"Perhaps yours; that is, our common affairs."
Ostrodumov hummed. He did not believe him. "Who knows? He's such
a busy body," he thought.
"There he is at last!" Mashurina exclaimed suddenly, and her small
unattractive eyes, fixed on the door, brightened, as if lit up by an inner
ray, making them soft and warm and tender.
The door opened, and this time a young man of twenty-three, with a
cap on his head and a bundle of books under his arm, entered the room.
It was Nejdanov himself.
II
AT the sight of visitors he stopped in the doorway, took them in at a
glance, threw off his cap, dropped the books on to the floor, walked
over to the bed, and sat down on the very edge. An expression of
annoyance and displeasure passed over his pale handsome face, which
seemed even paler than it really was, in contrast to his dark-red, wavy
hair.
Mashurina turned away and bit her lip; Ostrodumov muttered, "At
last!"
Paklin was the first to approach him.
"Why, what is the matter, Alexai Dmitritch, Hamlet of Russia? Has
something happened, or are you just simply depressed, without any
particular cause?
"Oh, stop! Mephistopheles of Russia!" Nejdanov exclaimed irritably. "I

am not in the mood for fencing with blunt witticisms just now."
Paklin laughed.
"That's not quite correct. If it is wit, then it can't be blunt. If blunt, then
it can't be wit."
"All right, all right! We know you are clever!
"Your nerves are out of order," Paklin remarked hesitatingly. "Or has
something really happened?"
"Oh, nothing in particular, only that it is impossible to show one's nose
in this hateful town without knocking against some vulgarity, stupidity,
tittle-tattle, or some horrible injustice. One can't live here any longer!"
"Is that why your advertisement in the papers says that you want a
place and have no objection to leaving St. Petersburg? " Ostrodumov
asked.
"Yes. I would go away from here with the greatest of pleasure, if some
fool could be found who would offer me a place!"
"You should first fullfil your duties here," Mashurina remarked
significantly, her face still turned away.
"What duties?" Nejdanov asked, turning towards her.
Mashurina bit her lip. "Ask Ostrodumov."
Nejdanov turned to Ostrodumov. The latter hummed and hawed, as if
to say, "Wait a minute."
"But seriously," Paklin broke in, "have you heard any unpleasant
news?"
Nejdanov bounced up from the bed like an india-rubber ball. "What
more do you want?" he shouted out suddenly, in a ringing voice. "Half
of Russia is dying of hunger! The Moscow News is triumphant! They
want to introduce classicism, the students' benefit clubs have been
closed, spies everywhere, oppression, lies, betrayals, deceit! And it is
not enough for him! He wants some new unpleasantness! He thinks that
I am joking. . . . Basanov has been arrested," he added, lowering his
voice. "I heard it at the library."
Mashurina and Ostrodumov lifted their heads simultaneously.
"My dear Alexai Dmitritch," Paklin began, "you are upset, and for a
very good reason. But have you forgotten in what times and in what
country we are living? Amongst us a drowning man must himself
create the straw to clutch at. Why be sentimental over it? One must
look the devil straight in the face and not get excited like children--"

"Oh, don't, please!" Nejdanov interrupted