She went on her knees before him—there in the open road—like a madwoman. He retreated a step, but she caught his hand and kissed it, and, just as in his dream, the tears were sparkling on her long, beautiful lashes.
‘Get up!’ he said, in a frightened whisper, raising her. ‘Get up at once!’
‘Are you happy—are you happy?’ she asked. ‘Say this one
word. Are you happy now? Today, this moment? Have you just been with her? What did she say?’
She did not rise from her knees; she would not listen to him; she put her questions hurriedly, as though she were pursued.
‘I am going away tomorrow, as you bade me—I won’t write—so that this is the last time I shall see you, the last time! This is really the LAST TIME!’
‘Oh, be calm—be calm! Get up!’ he entreated, in despair. She gazed thirstily at him and clutched his hands.
‘Good-bye!’ she said at last, and rose and left him, very quickly.
The prince noticed that Rogojin had suddenly appeared at her side, and had taken her arm and was leading her away.
‘Wait a minute, prince,’ shouted the latter, as he went. ‘I shall be back in five minutes.’
He reappeared in five minutes as he had said. The prince was waiting for him.
‘I’ve put her in the carriage,’ he said; ‘it has been waiting round the corner there since ten o’clock. She expected that you would be with THEM all the evening. I told her exactly what you wrote me. She won’t write to the girl any more, she promises; and tomorrow she will be off, as you wish. She de-sired to see you for the last time, although you refused, so we’ve been sitting and waiting on that bench till you should pass on your way home.’
‘Did she bring you with her of her own accord?’
‘Of course she did!’ said Rogojin, showing his teeth; ‘and
I saw for myself what I knew before. You’ve read her letters, I suppose?’
‘Did you read them?’ asked the prince, struck by the thought.
‘Of course—she showed them to me herself. You are thinking of the razor, eh? Ha, ha, ha!’
‘Oh, she is mad!’ cried the prince, wringing his hands. ‘Who knows? Perhaps she is not so mad after all,’ said Rogo-
jin, softly, as though thinking aloud. The prince made no reply.
‘Well, good-bye,’ said Rogojin. ‘I’m off tomorrow too, you know. Remember me kindly! By-the-by,’ he added, turning round sharply again, ‘did you answer her question just now? Are you happy, or not?’
‘No, no, no!’ cried the prince, with unspeakable sadness. ‘Ha, ha! I never supposed you would say ‘yes,’’ cried
Rogojin, laughing sardonically.
And he disappeared, without looking round again.
Part IV
I
A WEEK had elapsed since the rendezvous of our two friends on the green bench in the park, when, one fine
morning at about halfpast ten o’clock, Varvara Ardalionov-na, otherwise Mrs. Ptitsin, who had been out to visit a friend, returned home in a state of considerable mental de-pression.
There are certain people of whom it is dificult to say anything which will at once throw them into relief—in other words, describe them graphically in their typical characteristics. These are they who are generally known as ‘commonplace people,’ and this class comprises, of course,
the immense majority of mankind. Authors, as a rule, at-tempt to select and portray types rarely met with in their entirety, but these types are nevertheless more real than real life itself.
‘Podkoleosin’ [A character in Gogol’s comedy, The Wed-ding.] was perhaps an exaggeration, but he was by no means a non-existent character; on the contrary, how many intel-ligent people, after hearing of this Podkoleosin from Gogol, immediately began to find that scores of their friends were exactly like him! They knew, perhaps, before Gogol told them, that their friends were like Podkoleosin, but they did not know what name to give them. In real life, young fellows seldom jump out of the window just before their weddings,
because such a feat, not to speak of its other aspects, must be a decidedly unpleasant mode of escape; and yet there are plenty of bridegrooms, intelligent fellows too, who would be ready to confess themselves Podkoleosins in the depths of their consciousness, just before marriage. Nor does every husband feel bound to repeat at every step, ‘Tu l’as voulu, Georges Dandin!’ like another typical personage; and yet how many millions and billions of Georges Dandins there are in real life who feel inclined to utter this soul-drawn cry after their honeymoon, if not the day after the wedding! Therefore, without entering into any more serious examina-tion of the question, I will content myself with remarking that in real life typical characters are ‘watered down,’ so to speak; and all these Dandins and Podkoleosins actual-ly exist among us every day, but in a diluted form. I will just add, however, that Georges Dandin might have existed exactly as Moliere presented him, and probably does exist now and then, though rarely; and so I will end this scientific examination, which is beginning to look like a newspaper criticism. But for all this, the question remains,— what are the novelists to do with commonplace people, and how are they to be presented to the reader in such a form as to be in the least degree interesting? They cannot be left out al-together, for commonplace people meet one at every turn of life, and to leave them out would be to destroy the whole reality and probability of the story. To fill a novel with typi-cal characters only, or with merely strange and uncommon people, would render the book unreal and improbable, and would very likely destroy the interest. In my opinion, the
duty of the novelist is to seek out points of interest and in-struction even in the characters of commonplace people.
For instance, when the whole essence of an ordinary person’s nature lies in his perpetual and unchangeable com-monplaceness; and when in spite of all his endeavours to do something out of the common, this person ends, eventu-ally, by remaining in his unbroken line of routine—. I think such an individual really does become a type of his own— a type of commonplaceness which will not for the world, if it can help it, be contented, but strains and yearns to be something original and independent, without the slightest possibility of being so. To this class of commonplace peo-ple belong several characters in this novel;— characters which—I admit—I have not drawn very vividly up to now for my reader’s benefit.
Such were, for instance, Varvara Ardalionovna Ptitsin, her husband, and her brother, Gania.
There is nothing so annoying as to be fairly rich, of a fair-ly good family, pleasing presence, average education, to be
‘not stupid,’ kind-hearted, and yet to have no talent at all, no originality, not a single idea of one’s own—to be, in fact,
‘just like everyone else.’
Of such people there are countless numbers in this world—far more even than appear. They can be divided into two classes as all men can—that is, those of limited intellect, and those who are much cleverer. The former of these classes is the happier.
To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original
character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving.
Many of our young women have thought fit to cut their hair short, put on blue spectacles, and call themselves Ni-hilists. By doing this they have been able to persuade themselves, without further trouble, that they have ac-quired new convictions of their own. Some men have but felt some little qualm of kindness towards their fellow-men, and the fact has been quite enough to persuade them that they stand alone in the van of enlightenment and that no one has such humanitarian feelings as they. Others have but to read an idea of somebody else’s, and they can imme-diately assimilate it and believe that it was a child of their own brain. The ‘impudence of ignorance,’ if I may use the expression, is developed to a wonderful extent in such cas-es;—unlikely as it appears, it is met with at every turn.
This confidence of a stupid man in his own talents has been wonderfully depicted by Gogol in the amazing char-acter of Pirogoff. Pirogoff has not the slightest doubt of his own genius,—nay, of his SUPERIORITY of genius,—so cer-tain is he of it that he never questions it. How many Pirogoffs have there not been among our writers—scholars—propa-gandists? I say ‘have been,’ but indeed there are plenty of them at this very day.
Our friend, Gania, belonged to the other class—to the ‘much cleverer’ persons, though he was from head to foot
permeated and saturated with the longing to be origi-nal. This class, as I have said above, is far less happy. For the ‘clever commonplace’ person, though he may possibly
imagine himself a man of genius and originality, none the less has within his heart the deathless worm of suspicion and doubt; and this doubt sometimes brings a clever man to despair. (As a rule, however, nothing tragic happens;—his liver becomes a little damaged in the course of time, noth-ing more serious. Such men do not give up their aspirations after originality without a severe struggle,—and there have been men who, though good fellows in themselves, and even benefactors to humanity, have sunk to the level of base criminals for the sake of originality.
Gania was a beginner, as it were, upon this road. A deep and unchangeable consciousness of his own lack of talent, combined with a
