«No, it was time, high time,» he went on hotly. «We have put it off too long, and to my thinking humanity is the first consideration, humanity with our inferiors, remembering that they, too, are men. Humanity will save everything and bring out all that is….»
«He-he-he-he!» was heard from the direction of Semyon Ivanovitch.
«But why are you giving us such a talking to?» Stepan Nikiforovitch protested at last, with an affable smile. «I must own, Ivan Ilyitch, I have not been able to make out, so far, what you are maintaining. You advocate humanity. That is love of your fellow-creatures, isn’t it?»
«Yes, if you like. I….»
«Allow me! As far as I can see, that’s not the only thing. Love of one’s fellow-creatures has always been fitting. The reform movement is not confined to that. All sorts of questions have arisen relating to the peasantry, the law courts, economics, government contracts, morals and … and … and those questions are endless, and all together may give rise to great upheavals, so to say. That is what we have been anxious about, and not simply humanity….»
«Yes, the thing is a bit deeper than that,» observed Semyon Ivanovitch.
«I quite understand, and allow me to observe, Semyon Ivanovitch, that I can’t agree to being inferior to you in depth of understanding,» Ivan Ilyitch observed sarcastically and with excessive sharpness. «However, I will make so bold as to assert, Stepan Nikiforovitch, that you have not understood me either….»
«No, I haven’t.»
«And yet I maintain and everywhere advance the idea that humanity and nothing else with one’s subordinates, from the official in one’s department down to the copying clerk, from the copying clerk down to the house serf, from the servant down to the peasant—humanity, I say, may serve, so to speak, as the corner-stone of the coming reforms and the reformation of things in general. Why? Because. Take a syllogism. I am human, consequently I am loved. I am loved, so confidence is felt in me. There is a feeling of confidence, and so there is trust. There is trust, and so there is love … that is, no, I mean to say that if they trust me they will believe in the reforms, they will understand, so to speak, the essential nature of them, will, so to speak, embrace each other in a moral sense, and will settle the whole business in a friendly way, fundamentally. What are you laughing at, Semyon Ivanovitch? Can’t you understand?»
Stepan Nikiforovitch raised his eyebrows without speaking; he was surprised.
«I fancy I have drunk a little too much,» said Semyon Ivanovitch sarcastically, «and so I am a little slow of comprehension. Not quite all my wits about me.»
Ivan Ilyitch winced.
«We should break down,» Stepan Nikiforovitch pronounced suddenly, after a slight pause of hesitation.
«How do you mean we should break down?» asked Ivan Ilyitch, surprised at Stepan Nikiforovitch’s abrupt remark.
«Why, we should break under the strain.» Stepan Nikiforovitch evidently did not care to explain further.
«I suppose you are thinking of new wine in old bottles?» Ivan Ilyitch replied, not without irony. «Well, I can answer for myself, anyway.»
At that moment the clock struck half-past eleven.
«One sits on and on, but one must go at last,» said Semyon Ivanovitch, getting up. But Ivan Ilyitch was before him; he got up from the table and took his sable cap from the chimney-piece. He looked as though he had been insulted.
«So how is it to be, Semyon Ivanovitch? Will you think it over?» said Stepan Nikiforovitch, as he saw the visitors out.
«About the flat, you mean? I’ll think it over, I’ll think it over.»
«Well, when you have made up your mind, let me know as soon as possible.»
«Still on business?» Mr. Pralinsky observed affably, in a slightly ingratiating tone, playing with his hat. It seemed to him as though they were forgetting him.
Stepan Nikiforovitch raised his eyebrows and remained mute, as a sign that he would not detain his visitors. Semyon Ivanovitch made haste to bow himself out.
«Well … after that what is one to expect … if you don’t understand the simple rules of good manners….» Mr. Pralinsky reflected to himself, and held out his hand to Stepan Nikiforovitch in a particularly offhand way.
In the hall Ivan Ilyitch wrapped himself up in his light, expensive fur coat; he tried for some reason not to notice Semyon Ivanovitch’s shabby raccoon, and they both began descending the stairs.
«The old man seemed offended,» said Ivan Ilyitch to the silent Semyon Ivanovitch.
«No, why?» answered the latter with cool composure.
«Servile flunkey,» Ivan Ilyitch thought to himself.
They went out at the front door. Semyon Ivanovitch’s sledge with a grey ugly horse drove up.
«What the devil! What has Trifon done with my carriage?» cried Ivan Ilyitch, not seeing his carriage.
The carriage was nowhere to be seen. Stepan Nikiforovitch’s servant knew nothing about it. They appealed to Varlam, Semyon Ivanovitch’s coachman, and received the answer that he had been standing there all the time and that the carriage had been there, but now there was no sign of it.
«An unpleasant predicament,» Mr. Shipulenko pronounced. «Shall I take you home?»
«Scoundrelly people!» Mr. Pralinsky cried with fury. «He asked me, the rascal, to let him go to a wedding close here in the Petersburg Side; some crony of his was getting married, deuce take her! I sternly forbade him to absent himself, and now I’ll bet he has gone off there.»
«He certainly has gone there, sir,» observed Varlam; «but he promised to be back in a minute, to be here in time, that is.»
«Well, there it is! I had a presentiment that this would happen! I’ll give it to him!»
«You’d better give him a good flogging once or twice at the police station, then he will do what you tell him,» said Semyon Ivanovitch, as he wrapped the rug round him.
«Please don’t you trouble, Semyon Ivanovitch!»
«Well, won’t you let me take you along?»
«Merci, bon voyage.»
Semyon Ivanovitch drove off, while Ivan Ilyitch set off on foot along the wooden pavement, conscious of a rather acute irritation.
«Yes, indeed I’ll give it to you now, you rogue! I am going on foot on purpose to make you feel it, to frighten you! He will come back and hear that his master has gone off on foot … the blackguard!»
Ivan Ilyitch had never abused any one like this, but he was greatly angered, and besides, there was a buzzing in his head. He was not given to drink, so five or six glasses soon affected him. But the night was enchanting. There was a frost, but it was remarkably still and there was no wind. There was a clear, starry sky. The full moon was bathing the earth in soft silver light. It was so lovely that after walking some fifty paces Ivan Ilyitch almost forgot his troubles. He felt particularly pleased. People quickly change from one mood to another when they are a little drunk. He was even pleased with the ugly little wooden houses of the deserted street.
«It’s really a capital thing that I am walking,» he thought; «it’s a lesson to Trifon and a pleasure to me. I really ought to walk oftener. And I shall soon pick up a sledge on the Great Prospect. It’s a glorious night. What little houses they all are! I suppose small fry live here, clerks, tradesmen, perhaps…. That Stepan Nikiforovitch! What reactionaries they all are, those old fogies! Fogies, yes, c’est le mot. He is a sensible man, though; he has that bon sens, sober, practical understanding of things. But they are old, old. There is a lack of … what is it? There is a lack of something…. ‘We shall break down.’ What did he mean by that? He actually pondered when he said it. He didn’t understand me a bit. And yet how could he help understanding? It was more difficult not to understand it than to understand it. The chief thing is that I am convinced, convinced in my soul. Humanity … the love of one’s kind. Restore a man to himself, revive his personal dignity, and then … when the ground is prepared, get to work.
I believe that’s clear? Yes! Allow me, your Excellency; take a syllogism, for instance: we meet, for instance, a clerk, a poor, downtrodden clerk. ‘Well … who are you?’ Answer: ‘A clerk.’ Very good, a clerk; further: ‘What sort of clerk are you?’ Answer: ‘I am such and such a clerk,’ he says. ‘Are you in the service?’ ‘I am.’ ‘Do you want to be happy?’ ‘I do.’ ‘What do you need for happiness?’ ‘This and that.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because….’ and there the man understands me with a couple of words, the man’s mine, the man is caught, so to speak, in a net, and I can do what I like with him, that is, for his good. Horrid man that Semyon Ivanovitch!
And what a nasty phiz he has!… ‘Flog
