“Somehow, my friend,” he said with extraordinary calm.
Now I know that even Tatyana Pavlovna’s tiny capital of about five thousand was half spent on Versilov in these last two years.
Another time we somehow began talking about mama:
“My friend,” he suddenly said sadly, “I often said to Sofya Andreevna at the beginning of our union—at the beginning, and the middle, and the end as well, however: ‘My dear, I’m tormenting you, and I’ll torment you thoroughly, and I’m not sorry, as long as you’re before me; but if you should die, I know I’d do myself in with punishment.’”
However, I remember he was especially open that evening:
“If only I were a weak-tempered nonentity and suffered from the awareness of it! But no, I know that I’m infinitely strong, and what do you think my strength is? Precisely this spontaneous power of getting along with anything, which is so characteristic of all intelligent people of our generation. Nothing can destroy me, nothing can exterminate me, nothing can astonish me. I’m as tenacious as a yard dog. I can feel in the most comfortable way two contrary feelings at the same time—and that, of course, not by my own will. But nonetheless I know it’s dishonest, mainly because it’s all too reasonable. I’ve lived to be nearly fifty, and so far I don’t know whether it’s good that I’ve done so, or bad. Of course, I love life, and that follows directly from things, but for a man like me, to love life is base. Lately something new has begun, and the Krafts don’t survive, they shoot themselves. But it’s clear that the Krafts are stupid; well, and we’re intelligent—so it’s impossible to draw any analogy here, and the question still remains open. And can it be only for such as we that the earth stands? Yes, in all likelihood; but that is too cheerless an idea. However . . . however, the question still remains open.”
He spoke with sadness, and even so I didn’t know whether he was sincere or not. There was always some wrinkle in him that he wouldn’t drop for anything.
IV
I SHOWERED HIM with questions then, I threw myself on him like a hungry man on bread. He always answered me readily and straightforwardly, but in the final end he always brought it down to the most general aphorisms, so that, in essence, nothing could be drawn from it. And yet all these questions had troubled me all my life, and, I confess frankly, while still in Moscow, I postponed their resolution precisely until our meeting in Petersburg. I even told it to him directly, and he didn’t laugh at me—on the contrary, I remember, he shook my hand. On general politics and social questions, I could extract almost nothing from him, and it was these questions that troubled me most, in view of my “idea.” Of the likes of Dergachev, I once tore the observation from him “that they were beneath any criticism,” but at the same time he added strangely that he “reserved for himself the right not to attach any importance to his opinion.” Of how the contemporary states and world would end and what would bring about a renewal of the social world, he kept silent for terribly long, but one day I finally tortured a few words out of him: “I think it will all come about somehow in an extremely ordinary way,” he said once. “Quite simply, all the states, despite all balancing of budgets and ‘absence of deficits,’ un beau matin35 will become utterly confused, and each and every one of them will refuse to pay up, so that each and every one of them will be renewed in a general bankruptcy. Meanwhile, all the conservative elements of the whole world will be opposed to that, for it will be they who are the shareholders and creditors, and they will not want to allow the bankruptcy. Then, of course, there will begin a general oxidation, so to speak; the Yid will arrive in quantity, and a kingdom of Yids will begin; but all those who never had any shares, and generally never had anything, that is, all the beggars, naturally will not want to participate in the oxidation . . .
A struggle will begin, and after seventy-seven defeats, the beggars will annihilate the shareholders, take their shares from them, and sit in their place—as shareholders, of course. And maybe they’ll say something new, or maybe not. Most likely they’ll also go bankrupt. Beyond that, my friend, I can’t predict anything in the destinies that will change the face of this world. However, look in the Apocalypse . . .”
“But can it all be so material? Can the present-day world end only because of finances?”
“Oh, naturally, I’ve taken only one little corner of the picture, but that corner is connected with everything by, so to speak, indissoluble bonds.”
“What, then, is to be done?”
“Ah, my God, don’t be in a hurry; it won’t all come so soon. Generally, it’s best to do nothing; at least your conscience is at peace, since you haven’t taken part in anything.”
“Eh, come on, talk business. I want to know precisely what I’m to do and how I’m to live.”
“What are you to do, my dear? Be honest, never lie, don’t covet your neighbor’s house, in short, read the ten commandments: everything’s written there for all time.”
“Come on, come on, that’s all so old, and besides—it’s just words, and I need action.”
“Well, if you’re quite overcome with boredom, try loving someone, or something, or even simply becoming attached to something.”
“You just laugh! And besides, what am I alone to do with your ten commandments?”
“But if you fulfill them, despite all your questions and doubts, you’ll be a great man.”
“Unknown to anyone.”
“Nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest.”13
“No, you’re decidedly laughing!”
“Well, if you take it so much to heart, then it would be best to try and specialize quickly, take up construction or law; then you’ll be occupied with real and serious business, and you can settle down and forget about trifles.”
I said nothing—well, what could I get from that? And yet after each such conversation, I was more troubled than before. Besides, I saw clearly that there was always as if some mystery left in him; it was this that drew me to him more and more.
“Listen,” I interrupted him one day, “I always suspected that you were saying all this just so, from spite and out of suffering, but secretly, within yourself, it’s you who are a fanatic of some higher idea and are only hiding it or ashamed to admit it.”
“Thank you, my dear.”
“Listen, there’s nothing higher than being useful. Tell me, how can I be of greatest use at this given moment? I know you can’t decide that; but I’m only seeking your opinion: you tell me, and I’ll go and do as you tell me, I swear to you! Well, what is the great thought?”
“Well, to turn stones into bread—there’s a great thought.”14
“The greatest? No, truly, you’ve pointed out a whole path; tell me, then: is it the greatest?”
“A very great one, my friend, a very great one, but not the greatest; great, but secondary, and only great in the given moment. Man eats and doesn’t remember it; on the contrary, he’ll say at once: ‘Well, so I’ve eaten, and now what do I do?’ The question remains eternally open.”
“You once talked about ‘Geneva ideas.’ I didn’t understand—what are ‘Geneva ideas’?”
“Geneva ideas—it’s virtue without Christ, my friend, today’s ideas, or, better to say, the idea of the whole of today’s civilization.15 In short, it’s— one of those long stories that are very boring to begin, and it would be much better if we talked about other things, and still better if we were silent about other things.”
“All you want to do is be silent!”
“My friend, remember that to be silent is good, safe, and beautiful.”
“Beautiful?”
“Of course. Silence is always beautiful, and a silent person is always more beautiful than one who talks.”
“But to talk as you and I do is, of course, the same as being silent. Devil take that sort of beauty, and furthermore, devil take that sort of profit!”
“My dear,” he said to me suddenly, in a somewhat changed tone, even with feeling and with a sort of special insistence, “my dear, I by no means want to seduce you with any sort of bourgeois virtue instead of your ideals, nor do I insist that ‘happiness is better than heroism’; on the contrary, heroism is higher than any happiness, and the capacity for it alone already constitutes happiness. So that’s settled between us. I respect you precisely for being able, in our soured time, to cultivate some sort of ‘idea of your own’ in your soul (don’t worry, I remember it very well). But all the same it’s impossible not to think about measure, too, because now you precisely want a resounding life, to set something on fire, to smash something, to rise higher than all Russia, to sweep over like a storm cloud and leave everyone in fear and admiration, and disappear into the North American States. Surely there’s something of that kind in your soul, and that’s why I consider it necessary to warn you, because I’ve sincerely come to love you, my dear.”
What could I get from that as well? Here there was only a worry about me,
