Part 13 (2/2)

So I asked him: ”Whereabouts was the swamp, and were there many snipe in it?” ”To be sure, to be sure,” he sang out promptly, and with an expression of face as though I'd given him a rouble; ”the swamp's first-rate, I'm thankful to say; and as for all kinds of wild fowl,--my goodness, they're to be found there in wonderful plenty.” I set off, but not only found no wild fowl, the swamp itself had been dry for a long time. Now tell me, please, why is the Russian a liar? Why does the political economist lie, and why the lie about the wild fowl too?'

Litvinov made no answer, but only sighed sympathetically.

'But turn the conversation with the same political economist,' pursued Potugin, 'on the most abstruse problems of social science, keeping to theory, without facts...!--he takes flight like a bird, a perfect eagle.

I did once succeed, though, in catching one of those birds. I used a pretty snare, though an obvious one, as you shall see if you please. I was talking with one of our latter-day ”new young men” about various questions, as they call them. Well, he got very hot, as they always do.

Marriage among other things he attacked with really childish exasperation. I brought forward one argument after another.... I might as well have talked to a stone wall! I saw I should never get round him like that. And then I had a happy thought! ”Allow me to submit to you,”

I began,--one must always talk very respectfully to these ”new young men”--”I am really surprised at you, my dear sir; you are studying natural science, and your attention has never up till now been caught by the fact that all carnivorous and predatory animals--wild beasts and birds--all who have to go out in search of prey, and to exert themselves to obtain animal food for themselves and their young ... and I suppose you would include man in the category of such animals?” ”Of course, I should,” said the ”new young man,” ”man is nothing but a carnivorous animal.” ”And predatory?” I added. ”And predatory,” he declared. ”Well said,” I observed. ”Well, then I am surprised you've never noticed that such animals live in monogamy.” The ”new young man” started. ”How so?”

”Why, it is so. Think of the lion, the wolf, the fox, the vulture, the kite; and, indeed, would you condescend to suggest how they could do otherwise. It's hard work enough for the two together to get a living for their offspring.” My ”new young man” grew thoughtful. ”Well,” says he, ”in that case the animal is not a rule for man.” Thereupon I called him an idealist, and wasn't he hurt at that! He almost cried. I had to comfort him by promising not to tell of him to his friends. To deserve to be called an idealist is no laughing matter! The main point in which our latter-day young people are out in their reckoning is this. They fancy that the time for the old, obscure, underground work is over, that it was all very well for their old-fas.h.i.+oned fathers to burrow like moles, but that's too humiliating a part for us, we will take action in the light of day, we will take action.... Poor darlings! why your children even won't take action; and don't you care to go back to burrowing, burrowing underground again in the old tracks?'

A brief silence followed.

'I am of opinion, my dear sir,' began Potugin again, 'that we are not only indebted to civilisation for science, art, and law, but that even the very feeling for beauty and poetry is developed and strengthened under the influence of the same civilisation, and that the so-called popular, simple, unconscious creation is twaddling and rubbishy. Even in Homer there are traces of a refined and varied civilisation; love itself is enriched by it. The Slavophils would cheerfully hang me for such a heresy, if they were not such chicken-hearted creatures; but I will stick up for my own ideas all the same; and however much they press Madame Kohanovsky and ”The swarm of bees at rest” upon me,--I can't stand the odour of that _triple extrait de mougik Russe_, as I don't belong to the highest society, which finds it absolutely necessary to a.s.sure itself from time to time that it has not turned quite French, and for whose exclusive benefit this literature _en cuir de Russie_ is manufactured. Try reading the raciest, most ”popular” pa.s.sages from the ”Bees” to a common peasant--a real one; he'll think you're repeating him a new spell against fever or drunkenness. I repeat, without civilisation there's not even poetry. If you want to get a clear idea of the poetic ideal of the uncivilised Russian, you should turn up our ballads, our legends. To say nothing of the fact that love is always presented as the result of witchcraft, of sorcery, and produced by some philtre, to say nothing of our so-called epic literature being the only one among all the European and Asiatic literatures--the only one, observe, which does not present any typical pair of lovers--unless you reckon Vanka-Tanka as such; and of the Holy Russian knight always beginning his acquaintance with his destined bride by beating her ”most pitilessly” on her white body, because ”the race of women is puffed up”! all that I pa.s.s over; but I should like to call your attention to the artistic form of the young hero, the _jeune premier_, as he was depicted by the imagination of the primitive, uncivilised Slav. Just fancy him a minute; the _jeune premier_ enters; a cloak he has worked himself of sable, back-st.i.tched along every seam, a sash of seven-fold silk girt close about his armpits, his fingers hidden away under his hanging sleevelets, the collar of his coat raised high above his head, from before, his rosy face no man can see, nor, from behind, his little white neck; his cap is on one ear, while on his feet are boots of morocco, with points as sharp as a cobbler's awl, and the heels peaked like nails. Round the points an egg can be rolled, and a sparrow can fly under the heels. And the young hero advances with that peculiar mincing gait by means of which our Alcibiades, Tchivilo Plenkovitch, produced such a striking, almost medical, effect on old women and young girls, the same gait which we see in our loose-limbed waiters, that cream, that flower of Russian dandyism, that _ne plus ultra_ of Russian taste. This I maintain without joking; a sack-like gracefulness, that's an artistic ideal. What do you think, is it a fine type? Does it present many materials for painting, for sculpture? And the beauty who fascinates the young hero, whose ”face is as red as the blood of the hare”?... But I think you're not listening to me?'

Litvinov started. He had not, in fact, heard what Potugin was saying; he kept thinking, persistently thinking of Irina, of his last interview with her....

'I beg your pardon, Sozont Ivanitch,' he began, 'but I'm going to attack you again with my former question about ... about Madame Ratmirov.'

Potugin folded up his newspaper and put it in his pocket.

'You want to know again how I came to know her?'

'No, not exactly. I should like to hear your opinion ... on the part she played in Petersburg. What was that part, in reality?'

'I really don't know what to say to you, Grigory Mihalitch; I was brought into rather intimate terms with Madame Ratmirov ... but quite accidentally, and not for long. I never got an insight into her world, and what took place in it remained unknown to me. There was some gossip before me, but as you know, it's not only in democratic circles that slander reigns supreme among us. Besides I was not inquisitive. I see though,' he added, after a short silence, 'she interests you.'

'Yes; we have twice talked together rather openly. I ask myself, though, is she sincere?'

Potugin looked down. 'When she is carried away by feeling, she is sincere, like all women of strong pa.s.sions. Pride too, sometimes prevents her from lying.'

'Is she proud? I should rather have supposed she was capricious.'

'Proud as the devil; but that's no harm.'

'I fancy she sometimes exaggerates....'

'That's nothing either, she's sincere all the same. Though after all, how can you expect truth? The best of those society women are rotten to the marrow of their bones.'

'But, Sozont Ivanitch, if you remember, you called yourself her friend.

Didn't you drag me almost by force to go and see her?'

'What of that? she asked me to get hold of you; and I thought, why not?

And I really am her friend. She has her good qualities: she's very kind, that is to say, generous, that's to say she gives others what she has no sort of need of herself. But of course you must know her at least as well as I do.'

'I used to know Irina Pavlovna ten years ago; but since then----'

'Ah, Grigory Mihalitch, why do you say that? Do you suppose any one's character changes? Such as one is in one's cradle, such one is still in one's tomb. Or perhaps it is' (here Potugin bowed his head still lower) 'perhaps, you're afraid of falling into her clutches? that's certainly ... But of course one is bound to fall into some woman's clutches.'

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