Part 18

“But are there no great conceptions, no great words of consolation? Nationality, right, liberty, humanity, art?” Yes; those words do exist, and many people live by them and for them. But nevertheless, I have an idea that if Shakspeare were to be born again he would find no occasion to disclaim his “Hamlet,” his “Lear.” His penetrating glance would not descry anything new in human existence: the same motley and, in reality, incoherent picture would still unfold itself before him in its disquieting monotony. The same frivolity, the same cruelty, the same pressing demand for blood, gold, filth, the same stale pleasures, the same senseless sufferings in the name of ... well, in the name of the same nonsense which was ridiculed by Aristophanes three thousand years ago, the same coarse lures to which the many-headed beast still yields as readily as ever--in a word, the same anxious skipping of the squirrel in the same old wheel, which has not even been renewed.... Shakspeare would again make Lear repeat his harsh: “There are no guilty ones”--which, in other words, signifies: “There are no just”--and he also would say: “It is enough!” and he also would turn away.--One thing only: perhaps, in contrast to the gloomy, tragic tyrant Richard, the ironical genius of the great poet would like to draw another, more up-to-date tyrant, who is almost ready to believe in his own virtue and rests calmly at night or complains of the over-dainty dinner at the same time that his half-stifled victims are endeavouring to comfort themselves by at least imagining him as Richard III. surrounded by the ghosts of the people he has murdered....

But to what purpose?

Why demonstrate--and that by picking and weighing one’s words, by rounding and polishing one’s speech--why demonstrate to gnats that they really are gnats?

XV

But art?... Beauty?... Yes, those are mighty words; they are, probably, mightier than those which I have mentioned above. The Venus of Melos, for example, is more indubitable than the Roman law, or than the principles of 1789. Men may retort--and how many times have I heard these retorts!--that beauty itself is also a matter of convention, that to the Chinese it presents itself in a totally different manner from what it does to the European.... But it is not the conventionality of art which disconcerts me; its perishableness, and again its perishableness,--its decay and dust--that is what deprives me of courage and of faith. Art, at any given moment, is, I grant, more powerful than Nature itself, because in it there is neither symphony of Beethoven nor picture of Ruysdael nor poem of Goethe--and only dull-witted pedants or conscienceless babblers can still talk of art as a copy of Nature. But in the long run Nature is irresistible; she cannot be hurried, and sooner or later she will assert her rights. Unconsciously and infallibly obedient to law, she does not know art, as she does not know liberty, as she does not know good; moving onward from eternity, transmitted from eternity, she tolerates nothing immortal, nothing unchangeable.... Man is her child; but the human, the artificial is inimical to her, precisely because she strives to be unchangeable and immortal. Man is the child of Nature; but she is the universal mother, and she has no preferences: everything which exists in her bosom has arisen only for the benefit of another and must, in due time, make way for that other--she creates by destroying, and it is a matter of perfect indifference to her what she creates, what she destroys, if only life be not extirpated, if only death do not lose its rights.... And therefore she as calmly covers with mould the divine visage of Phidias’s Jupiter as she does a plain pebble, and delivers over to be devoured by the contemned moth the most precious lines of Sophocles. Men, it is true, zealously aid her in her work of extermination; but is not the same elementary force,--is not the force of Nature shown in the finger of the barbarian who senselessly shattered the radiant brow of Apollo, in the beast-like howls with which he hurled the picture of Apelles into the fire? How are we poor men, poor artists, to come to an agreement with this deaf and dumb force, blind from its birth, which does not even triumph in its victories, but marches, ever marches on ahead, devouring all things? How are we to stand up against those heavy, coarse, interminably and incessantly onrolling waves, how believe, in short, in the significance and worth of those perishable images which we, in the darkness, on the verge of the abyss, mould from the dust and for a mere instant?

XVI

All this is so ... but only the transitory is beautiful, Shakspeare has said; and Nature herself, in the unceasing play of her rising and vanishing forms, does not shun beauty. Is it not she who sedulously adorns the most momentary of her offspring--the petals of the flowers, the wings of the butterfly--with such charming colours? Is it not she who imparts to them such exquisite outlines? It is not necessary for beauty to live forever in order to be immortal--one moment is sufficient for it. That is so; that is just, I grant you--but only in cases where there is no personality, where man is not, liberty is not: the faded wing of the butterfly comes back again, and a thousand years later, with the selfsame wing of the selfsame butterfly, necessity sternly and regularly and impartially fulfils its round ... but man does not repeat himself like the butterfly, and the work of his hands, his art, his free creation once destroyed, is annihilated forever.... To him alone is it given to “create” ... but it is strange and terrible to articulate: “We are creators ... for an hour,”--as there once was, they say, a caliph for an hour.--Therein lies our supremacy--and our curse: each one of these “creators” in himself--precisely he, not any one else, precisely that ego--seems to have been created with deliberate intent, on a plan previously designed; each one more or less dimly understands his significance, feels that he is akin to something higher, something eternal--and he lives, he is bound to live in the moment and for the moment.[33] Sit in the mud, my dear fellow, and strive toward heaven!--The greatest among us are precisely those who are the most profoundly conscious of all of that fundamental contradiction; but in that case the question arises,--are the words “greatest, great” appropriate?

XVII

But what shall be said of those to whom, despite a thorough desire to do so, one cannot apply those appellations even in the sense which is attributed to them by the feeble human tongue?--What shall be said of the ordinary, commonplace, second-rate, third-rate toilers--whoever they may be--statesmen, learned men, artists--especially artists? How force them to shake off their dumb indolence, their dejected perplexity, how draw them once more to the field of battle, if once the thought as to the vanity of everything human, of every activity which sets for itself a higher aim than the winning of daily bread, has once crept into their heads? By what wreaths are they lured on--they, for whom laurels and thorns have become equally insignificant? Why should they again subject themselves to the laughter of “the cold throng” or to “the condemnation of the dunce,”--of the old dunce who cannot forgive them for having turned away from the former idols; of the young dunce who demands that they shall immediately go down on their knees in his company, that they should lie prone before new, just-discovered idols? Why shall they betake themselves again to that rag-fair of phantoms, to that market-place where both the seller and the buyer cheat each other equally, where everything is so noisy, so loud--and yet so poor and worthless? Why “with exhaustion in their bones” shall they interweave themselves again with that world where the nations, like peasant urchins on a festival day, flounder about in the mud for the sake of a handful of empty nuts, or admire with gaping mouths the wretched woodcuts, decorated with tinsel gold,--with that world where they had no right to life while they lived in it, and, deafening themselves with their own shouts, each one hastens with convulsive speed to a goal which he neither knows nor understands? No ... no.... It is enough ... enough ... enough!

XVIII

... The rest is silence.[34] ...

THE DOG

(1866)

“But if we can admit the possibility of the supernatural, the possibility of its intervention in real life,--then allow me to inquire, what rôle is sound judgment bound to play after this?”--shouted Antón Stepánitch, crossing his arms on his stomach.

Antón Stepánitch had held the rank of State Councillor,[35] had served in some wonderful department, and, as his speech was interlarded with pauses and was slow and uttered in a bass voice, he enjoyed universal respect. Not long before the date of our story, “the good-for-nothing little Order of St. Stanislas had been stuck on him,” as those who envied him expressed it.

“That is perfectly just,”--remarked Skvorévitch.

“No one will dispute that,”--added Kinarévitch.

“I assent also,”--chimed in, in falsetto, from a corner the master of the house, Mr. Finopléntoff.

“But I, I must confess, cannot assent, because something supernatural has happened to me,”--said a man of medium stature and middle age, with a protruding abdomen and a bald spot, who had been sitting silent before the stove up to that moment. The glances of all present in the room were turned upon him with curiosity and surprise--and silence reigned.

This man was a landed proprietor of Kalúga, not wealthy, who had recently come to Petersburg. He had once served in the hussars, had gambled away his property, resigned from the service and settled down in the country. The recent agricultural changes had cut off his revenues, and he had betaken himself to the capital in search of a snug little position. He possessed no abilities, and had no influential connections; but he placed great reliance on the friendship of an old comrade in the service, who had suddenly, without rhyme or reason, become a person of importance, and whom he had once aided to administer a sound thrashing to a card-sharper. Over and above that he counted upon his own luck--and it had not betrayed him; several days later he obtained the post of inspector of government storehouses, a profitable, even honourable position which did not require extraordinary talents: the storehouses themselves existed only in contemplation, and no one even knew with certainty what they were to contain,--but they had been devised as a measure of governmental economy.

Antón Stepánitch was the first to break the general silence.

“What, my dear sir?”--he began. “Do you seriously assert that something supernatural--I mean to say, incompatible with the laws of nature--has happened to you?”

“I do,”--returned “my dear sir,” whose real name was Porfíry Kapítonitch.

“Incompatible with the laws of nature?”--energetically repeated Antón Stepánitch, who evidently liked that phrase.

“Precisely ... yes; precisely the sort of thing you allude to.”

“This is astonishing! What think you, gentlemen?”--Antón Stepánitch endeavoured to impart to his features an ironical expression, but without result--or, to speak more accurately, the only result was to produce the effect that Mr. State Councillor smelt a bad odour.--“Will not you be so kind, my dear sir,”--he went on, addressing the landed proprietor from Kalúga,--“as to communicate to us the particulars of such a curious event?”

“Why not? Certainly!”--replied the landed proprietor, and moving forward to the middle of the room in an easy manner he spoke as follows:

I have, gentlemen, as you are probably aware,--or as you may not be aware,--a small estate in Kozyól County. I formerly derived some profit from it--but now, of course, nothing but unpleasantness is to be anticipated. However, let us put politics aside! Well, sir, on that same estate I have a “wee little” manor: a vegetable garden, as is proper, a tiny pond with little carp, and some sort of buildings--well, and a small wing for my own sinful body.... I am a bachelor. So, sir, one day--about six years ago--I had returned home rather late; I had been playing cards at a neighbour’s house--but I beg you to observe, I was not tipsy, as the expression goes. I undressed, got into bed, and blew out the light. And just imagine, gentlemen; no sooner had I blown out the light, than something began to rummage under my bed! Is it a rat? I thought. No, it was not a rat: it clawed and fidgeted and scratched itself.... At last it began to flap its ears!

It was a dog--that was clear. But where had the dog come from? I keep none myself. “Can some stray animal have run in?” I thought. I called to my servant; his name is Fílka. The man entered with a candle.

“What’s this,”--says I,--“my good Fílka? How lax thou art! A dog has intruded himself under my bed.”

“What dog?”--says he.

“How should I know?”--says I;--“that’s thy affair--not to allow thy master to be disturbed.”

My Fílka bent down, and began to pass the candle about under the bed.

“Why,”--says he,--“there’s no dog here.”

I bent down also; in fact there was no dog.... Here was a marvel! I turned my eyes on Fílka: he was smiling.

“Fool,”--said I to him,--“what art thou grinning about? When thou didst open the door the dog probably took and sneaked out into the anteroom. But thou, gaper, didst notice nothing, because thou art eternally asleep. Can it be that thou thinkest I am drunk?”

He attempted to reply, but I drove him out, curled myself up in a ring, and heard nothing more that night.

But on the following night--just imagine!--the same thing was repeated. No sooner had I blown out the light than it began to claw and flap its ears. Again I summoned Fílka, again he looked under the bed--again nothing! I sent him away, blew out the light--phew, damn it! there was the dog still. And a dog it certainly was: I could hear it breathing and rummaging in its hair with its teeth in search of fleas so plainly!

“Fílka!”--says I,--“come hither without a light!”... He entered.... “Well, now,”--says I, “dost thou hear?...”

“I do,”--said he. I could not see him, but I felt that the fellow was quailing.

“What dost thou make of it?”--said I.

“What dost thou command me to make of it, Porfíry Kapítonitch?... ’Tis an instigation of the Evil One!”

“Thou art a lewd fellow; hold thy tongue with thy instigation of the Evil One.”... But the voices of both of us were like those of birds, and we were shaking as though in a fever--in the darkness. I lighted a candle: there was no dog, and no noise whatever--only Fílka and I as white as clay. And I must inform you, gentlemen--you can believe me or not--but from that night forth for the space of six weeks the same thing went on. At last I even got accustomed to it and took to extinguishing my light because I cannot sleep with a light. “Let him fidget!” I thought. “It doesn’t harm me.”

“But--I see--that you do not belong to the cowardly squad,”--interrupted Antón Stepánitch, with a half-scornful, half-condescending laugh. “The hussar is immediately perceptible!”

“I should not be frightened at you, in any case,”--said Porfíry Kapítonitch, and for a moment he really did look like a hussar.--“But listen further.”

A neighbour came to me, the same one with whom I was in the habit of playing cards. He dined with me on what God had sent, and lost fifty rubles to me for his visit; night was drawing on--it was time for him to go. But I had calculations of my own:--“Stop and spend the night with me, Vasíly Vasílitch; to-morrow thou wilt win it back, God willing.”

My Vasíly Vasílitch pondered and pondered--and stayed. I ordered a bed to be placed for him in my own chamber.... Well, sir, we went to bed, smoked, chattered,--chiefly about the feminine sex, as is fitting in bachelor society,--and laughed, as a matter of course. I look; Vasíly Vasílitch has put out his candle and has turned his back on me; that signifies: “_Schlafen Sie wohl._” I waited a little and extinguished my candle also. And imagine: before I had time to think to myself, “What sort of performance will there be now?” my dear little animal began to make a row. And that was not all; he crawled out from under the bed, walked across the room, clattering his claws on the floor, waggling his ears, and suddenly collided with a chair which stood by the side of Vasíly Vasílitch’s bed!

“Porfíry Kapítonitch,”--says Vasíly Vasílitch, and in such an indifferent voice, you know,--“I didn’t know that thou hadst taken to keeping a dog. What sort of an animal is it--a setter?”

“I have no dog,”--said I,--“and I never have had one.”

“Thou hast not indeed! But what’s this?”

“What is this?”--said I.--“See here now; light the candle and thou wilt find out for thyself.”

“It isn’t a dog?”

“No.”

Vasíly Vasílitch turned over in bed.--“But thou art jesting, damn it?”

“No, I’m not jesting.”--I hear him go scratch, scratch with a match, and that thing does not stop, but scratches its side. The flame flashed up ... and basta! There was not a trace of a dog! Vasíly Vasílitch stared at me--and I stared at him.

“What sort of a trick is this?”--said he.

“Why,”--said I,--“this is such a trick that if thou wert to set Socrates himself on one side and Frederick the Great on the other even they couldn’t make head or tail of it.”--And thereupon I told him all in detail. Up jumped my Vasíly Vasílitch as though he had been singed! He couldn’t get into his boots.

“Horses!”--he yelled--“horses!”

I began to argue with him, but in vain. He simply groaned.

“I won’t stay,”--he shouted,--“not a minute!--Of course, after this, thou art a doomed man!--Horses!...”

But I prevailed upon him. Only his bed was dragged out into another room--and night-lights were lighted everywhere. In the morning, at tea, he recovered his dignity; he began to give me advice.

“Thou shouldst try absenting thyself from the house for several days, Porfíry Kapítonitch,” he said: “perhaps that vile thing would leave thee.”

But I must tell you that he--that neighbour of mine--had a capacious mind! he worked his mother-in-law so famously among other things: he palmed off a note of hand on her; which signifies that he chose the most vulnerable moment! She became like silk: she gave him a power of attorney over all her property--what more would you have? But that was a great affair--to twist his mother-in-law round his finger--wasn’t it, hey? Judge for yourselves. But he went away from me somewhat discontented; I had punished him to the extent of another hundred rubles. He even swore at me: “Thou art ungrateful,”--he said, “thou hast no feeling;” but how was I to blame for that? Well, this is in parenthesis--but I took his suggestion under consideration. That same day I drove off to town and established myself in an inn, with an acquaintance, an old man of the Old Ritualist sect.[36]

He was a worthy old man, although a trifle harsh, because of loneliness: his whole family were dead. Only he did not favour tobacco at all,[37] and felt a great loathing for dogs; I believe, for example, that rather than admit a dog into the room he would have rent himself in twain! “For how is it possible?”--he said. “There in my room, on the wall, the Sovereign Lady herself deigns to dwell;[38] and shall a filthy dog thrust his accursed snout in there?”--That was ignorance, of course! However, this is my opinion: if any man has been vouchsafed wisdom, let him hold to it!

“But you are a great philosopher, I see,”--interrupted Antón Stepánitch again, with the same laugh as before.

This time Porfíry Kapítonitch even scowled.

“What sort of a philosopher I am no one knows,”--he said as his moustache twitched in a surly manner:--“but I would gladly take you as a pupil.”

We all fairly bored our eyes into Antón Stepánitch; each one of us expected an arrogant retort or at least a lightning glance.... But Mr. State Councillor altered his smile from scorn to indifference, then yawned, dangled his foot--and that was all!

So then, I settled down at that old man’s house--[went on Porfíry Kapítonitch].--He assigned me a room “for acquaintance’s” sake,--not of the best; he himself lodged there also, behind a partition--and that was all I required. But what tortures I did undergo! The chamber was small, it was hot, stifling, and there were flies, and such sticky ones; in the corner was a remarkably large case for images, with ancient holy pictures; their garments were dim and puffed out; the air was fairly infected with olive-oil, and some sort of a spice in addition; on the bedstead were two down beds; if you moved a pillow, out ran a cockroach from beneath it.... I drank an incredible amount of tea, out of sheer tedium--it was simply horrible! I got into bed; it was impossible to sleep.--And on the other side of the partition my host was sighing and grunting and reciting his prayers. I heard him begin to snore--and very lightly and courteously, in old-fashioned style. I had long since extinguished my candle--only the shrine-lamp was twinkling in front of the holy pictures.... A hindrance, of course! So I took and rose up softly, in my bare feet: I reached up to the lamp and blew it out.... Nothing happened.--“Aha!” I thought: “this means that he won’t make a fuss in the house of strangers.”... But no sooner had I lain down on the bed than the row began again! The thing clawed, and scratched himself and flapped his ears ... well, just as I wanted him to. Good! I lay there and waited to see what would happen. I heard the old man wake up.

“Master,”--said he,--“hey there, master?”

“What’s wanted?”--said I.

“Was it thou who didst put out the shrine-lamp?”--And without awaiting my reply, he suddenly began to mumble:

“What’s that? What’s that? A dog? A dog? Akh, thou damned Nikonian!”[39]

“Wait a bit, old man,”--said I,--“before thou cursest; but it would be better for thee to come hither thyself. Things deserving of wonder are going on here,”--said I.

The old man fussed about behind the partition and entered my room with a candle, a slender one, of yellow wax; and I was amazed as I looked at him! He was all bristling, with shaggy ears and vicious eyes like those of a polecat; on his head was a small skull-cap of white felt; his beard reached to his girdle and was white also; and he had on a waistcoat with brass buttons over his shirt, and fur boots on his feet, and he disseminated an odour of juniper. In that condition he went up to the holy pictures, crossed himself thrice with two fingers[40] lighted the shrine-lamp, crossed himself again, and turning to me, merely grunted:

“Explain thyself!”

Thereupon, without the least delay, I communicated to him all the circumstances. The old man listened to all my explanations without uttering the smallest word; he simply kept shaking his head. Then he sat down on my bed, still maintaining silence. He scratched his breast, the back of his head, and other places, and still remained silent.

“Well, Feodúl Ivánitch,”--said I, “what is thy opinion: is this some sort of visitation of the Evil One, thinkest thou?”