Virgin Soil. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
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such things in two words. I will give you a hundred roubles a month and all travelling expenses. Will you come?”
Nejdanov blushed.
“That is more than I wanted to ask … because I—”
“Well,” Sipiagin interrupted him, “I look upon the matter as settled, and consider you as a member of our household.” He rose from his chair, and became quite gay and expansive, as if he had just received a present. A certain amiable familiarity, verging on the playful, began to show itself in all his gestures. “We shall set out in a day or two,” he went on, in an easy tone. “There is nothing I love better than meeting spring in the country, although I am a busy, prosaic sort of person, tied to town … I want you to count your first month as beginning from today. My wife and boy have already started, and are probably in Moscow by now. We shall find them in the lap of nature. We will go alone, like two bachelors, ha, ha!” Sipiagin laughed coquettishly, through his nose. “And now—”
He took a black and silver pocketbook out of his overcoat pocket and pulled out a card.
“This is my address. Come and see me tomorrow at about twelve o’clock. We can talk things over further. I should like to tell you a few of my views on education. We can also decide when to start.”
Sipiagin took Nejdanov’s hand. “By the way,” he said, lowering his voice and bending his head a little to one side, “if you are in need of money, please do not stand on ceremony. I can let you have a month’s pay in advance.”
Nejdanov was at a loss to know what to say. He gazed, with the same puzzled expression, at the kind, bright face, which was so strange yet so close to him, smiling encouragingly.
“You are not in need of any?” Sipiagin asked in a whisper.
“I will tell you tomorrow, if I may,” Nejdanov said at last.
“Well, goodbye, then. Till tomorrow.” Sipiagin dropped Nejdanov’s hand and turned to go out.
“I should like to know,” Nejdanov asked suddenly, “who told you my name? You said you heard it at the theatre.”
“Someone who is very well known to you. A relative of yours, I think. Prince G.”
“The aide-de-camp?”
“Yes.”
Nejdanov flushed even redder than before, but did not say anything. Sipiagin shook his hand again, without a word this time, then bowing first to him and then to Paklin, put on his hat at the door, and went out with a self-satisfied smile on his lips, denoting the deep impression the visit must have produced upon him.
IV
SIPIAGIN had barely crossed the threshold when Paklin jumped up, and rushing across to Nejdanov began showering congratulations upon him.
“What a fine catch!” he exclaimed laughing, scarcely able to stand still. “Do you know who he is? He’s quite a celebrity, a chamberlain, one of our pillars of society, a future minister!”
“I have never heard of him,” Nejdanov remarked dejectedly.
Paklin threw up his arms in despair.
“That’s just where we are mistaken, Alexai Dmitritch! We never know anyone. We want to do things, to turn the whole world upside down, and are living outside this very world, amidst two or three friends, jostling each other in our narrow little circle!
“Excuse me,” Nejdanov put in. “I don’t think that is quite true. We certainly do not go amongst the enemy, but are constantly mixing with our own kind, and with the masses.”
“Just a minute!” Paklin interrupted, in his turn. “Talking of enemies reminds me of Goethe’s lines—
Wer den Dichter will versteh’n Muss im Dichter’s lands geh’n.
and I say—
Wer den Feinde will versteh’n Muss im Feinde’s lands geh’n.
To turn one’s back on one’s enemies, not to try and understand their manner of life, is utterly stupid! Yes, utterly stu-pid! If I want to shoot a wolf in the forest, I must first find out his haunts. You talked of coming in contact with the people just now. My dear boy! In 1862 the Poles formed their revolutionary bands in the forest; we are just about to enter that same forest, I mean the people, where it is no less dark and dense than in the other.”
“Then what would you have us do?”
“The Hindus cast themselves under the wheels of the Juggernaut,” Paklin continued; “they were mangled to pieces and died in ecstasy. We, also, have our Juggernaut—it crushes and mangles us, but there is no ecstasy in it.”
“Then what would you have us do?” Nejdanov almost screamed at him. “Would you have us write preachy novels?”
Paklin folded his arms and put his head on one side.
“You, at any rate, could write novels. You have a decidedly literary turn of mind. All right, I won’t say anything about it. I know you don’t like it being mentioned. I know it is not very exciting to write the sort of stuff wanted, and in the modern style too. ‘ “Oh, I love you,” she bounded—’ ”
“It’s all the same to me,” he replied, scratching himself.
“That is precisely why I advise you to get to know all sorts and conditions, beginning from the very highest. We must not be entirely dependent on people like Ostrodumov! They are very honest, worthy folk, but so hopelessly stupid! You need only look at our friend. The very soles of his boots are not like those worn by intelligent people. Why did he hurry away just now? Only because he did not want to be in the same room with an aristocrat, to breathe the same air—”
“Please don’t talk like that about Ostrodumov before me!” Nejdanov burst out. “He wears thick boots because they are cheaper!”
“I did not mean it in that sense,” Paklin began.
“If he did not wish to remain in the same room with an aristocrat,” Nejdanov continued, raising his voice, “I think it very praiseworthy on his part, and what is more, he is capable of sacrificing himself, will face death, if necessary, which is more than you or I will ever do!”
Paklin made a sad grimace, and pointed to his scraggy, crippled legs.
“Now do I look like a warrior, my dear Alexai Dmitritch? But enough of this. I am delighted that you met this Sipiagin, and can even foresee something useful to our cause as a result of it. You will find yourself in the highest society, will come in contact with those wonderful beauties one hears about, women with velvety bodies on steel springs, as it says in ‘Letters on Spain’. Get to know them, my dear fellow. If you were at all inclined to be an Epicurean, I should really be afraid to let you go. But those are not the objects with which you are going, are they?”
“I am going away,” Nejdanov said, “to earn my living. And to get away from you all,” he added to himself.
“Of course, of course! That is why I advise you to learn. Fugh! What a smell this gentleman has left behind him!” Paklin sniffed the air. “The very ambrosia that the governor’s wife longed for in Gogol’s ‘Revisor’!”
“He discussed me with Prince G.,” Nejdanov remarked dejectedly. “I suppose he knows my whole history now.”
“You need not suppose; you may be quite sure of it! But what does it matter? I wouldn’t mind betting that that was the very reason for his wanting to engage you. You will be able to hold your own with the best of them. You are an aristocrat yourself by blood, and consequently an equal. However, I have stayed too long. I must go