Chapter 4 "Duel" III

three In order to relieve boredom and understand the plight of the newcomers without their families who have no place to eat because there is no hotel in the city, military medical officer Samoylenko did one thing for them: provide them with meals in his own home .During this period, only two people joined his family: the young zoologist von Koren, who came this summer to study jellyfish embryos by the Black Sea, and the deacon Pobedov, who Not long ago he had graduated from a religious school, and had been sent to this town to take the place of an old deacon who was out to heal.The two of them paid twelve rubles each month for lunch and dinner, and Samoylenko made them promise to come to lunch at two o'clock on time.

The first to arrive was, as usual, von Koren.He sat down in the living room without making a sound, took a photo album from the table, and began to carefully look at the faded photos. In the photos, there were some unknown men in fat trousers and top hats, and some women. , wearing a bell skirt and a cap.Samoylenko only remembered the names of a few of them, and he always admired those whose names he had forgotten: "That is a very outstanding, talented and wise man!" After reading the photo album, von Korenko , took a pistol from the cubicle, squinted his left eye, and aimed for a long time at the portrait of Prince Vorontsov, or else he stopped in front of a mirror and looked at his dark face, with its large forehead, Curly hair like a negro, a dark cloth shirt with a large pattern like the one on a Persian rug, and a wide belt instead of a waistcoat.It was probably more pleasurable to him to observe himself than to look at photographs or to play with the pistol in its expensive cabinet.His face, his well-cropped beard, and his shoulders, which evidently testified to good health and a strong constitution, pleased him.He's also pleased with his stylish attire, from the tie that matches the color of his shirt to the yellow leather shoes.

He looked at the photographs and in the mirror, while Samoylenko was bustling about in the kitchen and in the antechamber next to it, shirtless and waistless, bare-chested, excited, dripping with sweat, bustling about at the table, He was mixing lettuce or making a seasoning, or cutting beef, cucumbers, and onions for giblet soup, while he stared viciously at the orderly who was cooking for him, now brandishing a kitchen knife at him, now Wave the ladle. "Bring vinegar!" he ordered. "It's not vinegar, it's olive oil!" he cried, stamping his foot. "But where are you going, beast?"

"Get the butter, my lord," said the frightened orderly in a high trembling voice. "Come on! It's in the cupboard! Tell Dahlia to put some fennel in the cucumber jar! Fennel! Cover the sour cream, you so-so fellow, or the flies will fly in!" When he yelled it didn't matter, it seemed that the whole house rang.Ten or fifteen minutes before two o'clock the deacon came.He is a young man of about twenty-two years old, lean, with long hair, no beard, and a mustache that is too thin to be seen.As soon as he entered the living room, he crossed himself against the statue, smiled, and held out a hand to von Koren.

"Good day," said the zoologist coldly, "where have you been?" "Going to the pier to catch gobies." "Well, of course. . . . It seems, deacon, that you'll never be busy with work." "Why bother? Work is not a bear to run into the woods," said the deacon, smiling, and putting his hand into the deep pocket of his white cassock, which he wore under his cassock. "It's a pity that no one came to beat you!" said the zoologist, sighing. After another fifteen to twenty minutes, no one came to ask them to eat.The orderly could still be heard running from the hall into the kitchen and back again, his boots rattling, and Samoylenko shouted: "Put it on the table! Where are you putting it? Wash it first!"

The starving deacon and von Koren began to stamp their heels on the floor to show that they were anxiously waiting, like spectators in the upper balconies of a theatre.At last the door opened, and the exhausted orderly announced: "Dinner is ready!" In the dining room, Samoylenko, purple in the face and sweating from the heat of the kitchen, was waiting for them with an angry expression. he looked at them ferociously, and with a fearful expression on his face, he lifted the lid of the soup-bowl, and filled them both with a plateful of soup, which he did not relax until he believed that they enjoyed it and liked it. Taking a deep breath, he sat down on his deep armchair.There was a look of ecstasy, sweetness, and tenderness on his face. ...He poured himself a glass of white wine without haste, and said, "Cheers to the health of the younger generation!"

Ever since his conversation with Laevsky, Samoylenko, from morning until lunchtime, had always felt a heavy weight in his soul, although he was in the best of spirits.He pitied Laevsky and wanted to help him.He drank a glass of vodka before the soup, sighed: "I saw Vanya Laevsky today. The man's life is very difficult. The material aspects of his life are not satisfactory, but the main It's psychologically uncomfortable. This young man is very poor." "I have no pity for such a man!" said von Koren. "If this lovely man stumbles overboard, I'll give him another push with the cane: drown, man, drown. . . . " "That's a lie. You wouldn't do that."

"Why do you think so?" said the zoologist, shrugging his shoulders. "I will do good things just like you." "Is it a good thing to drown people?" asked the deacon, laughing. "Drowning Laevsky? That's a good thing." "There seems to be something missing in the cold soup..." said Samoylenko, intending to change the subject. "Laevsky is absolutely harmful, no less dangerous to society than the cholera germ," said von Koren. "Drowning him is a matter of great merit." "You don't do yourself any favors when you talk about your friend like that. Tell me: why do you hate him?"

"Don't talk nonsense, doctor. It is stupid to hate and despise germs, but to regard everyone you meet, indiscriminately, as a friend, then, thank you very much, it is indiscriminate, unwilling to take justice to people in a word, it is irresponsible. I think your Laevsky is a villain, I do not hide it, and I treat him like a villain in all good conscience. Well, you put him As your friend, then go kiss him. You regard him as your friend, that is to say, you treat him as you treat me and the deacon, or roughly the same. You treat all It doesn't matter at all." "Call people bad!" muttered Samoylenko, frowning in disgust.

"This sucks, I don't even know what to say to you!" "Judging people should be based on people's actions," von Koe continued. "Now judge, deacon. . . . Let me talk to you, deacon. Mr. Laevsky's activities are laid out before you like a long Chinese line, which you can read from the beginning. The end. He lived here for two years, what did he do? We can tell you one by one. First, he taught the residents of this city to play Vent. Two years ago, people here did not understand this. It is a kind of game, but now, everyone, even women and boys, play Wendt all the time. Second, he taught the townspeople to drink beer, which people here have never understood before; in his favor, The townspeople have just learned about the different kinds of spirits, and now, even if they are blindfolded, they can still tell which is Koselev and which is Smirnov No. 21. Thirdly, in the past, men here used to commit adultery with other people's wives in secret, for the same reason that a thief steals secretly without knowing it. Adultery is always considered a shameful thing, but Laev Ski pioneered this by living openly with other people's wives. Fourth..." Von Koren quickly finished his cold soup and passed the plate to the orderly.

"I have known Laevsky from the first month of my acquaintance," he went on to the deacon. "We got here at the same time. Guys like him always love friendship, intimacy, solidarity, because they're always in need of a company to play with them, to drink, to eat, and besides, they like to gossip. , then they need someone to listen to them. We became friends, that is to say, he hangs out at my place every day, gets in the way of my work, talks about his mistress without hesitation. From the beginning, his unusual The lie surprised me secretly, it made me nauseous. I blamed him as a friend, why did he drink so much wine, why he lived beyond his means, was in debt, why he didn't do anything, what books I don’t even look at why they are so uneducated and know so little. When he answered my questions, he smiled wryly, sighed, and said, “I am a frustrated person, a superfluous person, or, “You want us to What about these remnants of serfdom?' Or, 'We have degenerated...' Otherwise, he babbles about Onegin, Picholine, Byron's Cain, Bazarov Lah. He always said of them: 'They are our physical and spiritual fathers'.That is to say, you have to understand that it is not his fault that government documents have been left unopened for weeks on end, nor is it his fault that he has drunk himself and ordered others to drink. King, Picholin, and Turgenev, who wrote about frustrated people and superfluous people.You see, the reason for his extreme debauchery and absurdity is not in him, but somewhere outside him. Again, what an ingenious idea!It turns out that he is not the only one who is dissolute, hypocritical, and dirty, but us...'We people of the 80s', 'We are weak and neurotic descendants of serfdom', 'We have been victimized by civilization' ... In a word, we have to understand that a great man like Laevsky is still great even in his degeneration.His licentiousness, his lack of education, his baseness, is a natural and historical phenomenon, sanctified by inevitability, and the reasons for it are cosmopolitan and spontaneous, for which reason Laevsky There should be an ever-burning lamp before him, for he is an unfortunate victim of age, fashion, heredity, and so on.All the clerks and wives listened to him with admiration, but for a long time I could not figure out whether the man I was dealing with was a cynic or a clever liar.A person like him who is an intellectual on the surface but is actually half-knowledgeable and tries to boast of his elegance is good at pretending to have an extremely complicated personality. " "Shut up!" said Samoylenko, irritated. "I will not allow a very noble person to be spoken so badly in front of me!" "Don't interrupt, Alexander Daviditch," said von Koren calmly. "I'm about to finish. Laevsky is a rather simple organism. His mental skeleton is this: in the morning, loafers, bath, coffee, after that until lunchtime, loafers, walk, talk, two o'clock in the afternoon clock, loafers, lunch, wine, five o'clock, bath, tea, wine, then Went, lying, ten o'clock, supper, wine, and after midnight, sleep, la femme. His life consisted of In this narrow framework, it is like an egg in its shell. Whether he walks, sits, gets angry, writes, or feels happy, it can all be attributed to wine, cards, sandals, and women. Women played a decisive and overwhelming role in his life. He himself said that he fell in love at the age of thirteen and had an affair with a woman who had treated him well when he was just a freshman in college. Influenced by her, he received his musical education from her. He went to the second year of college, bought a whore from a brothel for money, and raised her to his level, that is, called her his mistress, but She lived with him for half a year, then ran back to the madam, and the incident caused him much mental distress. Well, he suffered so much that he left the university and lived at home for two years without doing any work. But, it was even better. At home, he hooked up with a widow, and she persuaded him to leave the law department and transfer to the language department. He did so. After he graduated, he fell in love with the current... What do you say?... A married woman had to go to the Caucasus with her, it is said that she did it for ideals... Either today or tomorrow, he will stop loving her and go back to Petersburg, and That's ideal too." "But how do you know?" muttered Samoylenko, looking angrily at the zoologist. "You'd better eat." At this time it was served stewed mullet with polish sauce.Samoylenko gave each of his two companions a whole mullet and poured them the Polish sauce himself.They passed two minutes in silence. "Women play an important role in every man's life," said the deacon. "It's unthinkable." "Yes, but to what extent? To each of us a woman is mother, sister, wife, friend; but to Laevsky she is everything and at the same time only a mistress. Woman, That is to say, living with a woman has become the happiness and goal of his life; his happiness, sorrow, boredom, and disillusionment are all due to the woman; life makes him bored, and it is also the fault of the woman. The dawn of a new life shines, When the ideal appears, it is time to find a woman again....Whether it is a work or a picture, there must be a woman in it to satisfy him. In his opinion, our era is not good because it is better than that of the 1940s and 1960s. The difference in ten years is only because we are not good at indulging in the lingering love and lust to the point of ecstasy. In the brains of these lecherous people, most of them have growths similar to sarcoma, which suppress their brains and direct their entire body. Mental activity. Whenever Laevsky sits in a social place, you have only to watch and you will find that if anyone asks him a general question, such as a question of cells or instincts, he just sits aside and says nothing. and doesn't listen to what people say. He looks listless, disappointed, disinterested in everything, and finds everything vulgar and boring; however, as soon as you talk about males and females, for example, when female spiders always take the males after fertilization. When a spider eats it, his eyes will shine with curiosity, his face will be bright, and in a word, he will live. All his thoughts, no matter how noble, noble, or calm, will always have this one thing in common. You walk with him in the street, say, and meet a donkey.  … He will ask: "Excuse me, tell me what would happen if you let a donkey mate with a camel Sample? 'And those dreams!Did he tell you about his dreams?Really brilliant!Now he dreamed that he was marrying the moon, and now he dreamed that he was called by the police to marry a banjo. . . . " The deacon laughed loudly. Samoylenko frowned and scowled angrily, so as not to laugh, but couldn't help it, and laughed too. "It's all bullshit!" he said, wiping away tears. "Really, bullshit!" "Notes" ① Onegin is the protagonist in Pushkin's "Evgeny Onegin"; Bi Qiaolin is the protagonist in Lermontov's "Contemporary Heroes"; Cain is the protagonist in Byron's poetic drama "Cain". The hero of the book; Bazarov is the hero of Turgenev's novel. ②French: woman. three In order to relieve boredom and understand the plight of the newcomers without their families who have no place to eat because there is no hotel in the city, military medical officer Samoylenko did one thing for them: provide them with meals in his own home .During this period, only two people joined his family: the young zoologist von Koren, who came this summer to study jellyfish embryos by the Black Sea, and the deacon Pobedov, who Not long ago he had graduated from a religious school, and had been sent to this town to take the place of an old deacon who was out to heal.The two of them paid twelve rubles each month for lunch and dinner, and Samoylenko made them promise to come to lunch at two o'clock on time. The first to arrive was, as usual, von Koren.He sat down in the living room without making a sound, took a photo album from the table, and began to carefully look at the faded photos. In the photos, there were some unknown men in fat trousers and top hats, and some women. , wearing a bell skirt and a cap.Samoylenko only remembered the names of a few of them, and he always admired those whose names he had forgotten: "That is a very outstanding, talented and wise man!" After reading the photo album, von Korenko , took a pistol from the cubicle, squinted his left eye, and aimed for a long time at the portrait of Prince Vorontsov, or else he stopped in front of a mirror and looked at his dark face, with its large forehead, Curly hair like a negro, a dark cloth shirt with a large pattern like the one on a Persian rug, and a wide belt instead of a waistcoat.It was probably more pleasurable to him to observe himself than to look at photographs or to play with the pistol in its expensive cabinet.His face, his well-cropped beard, and his shoulders, which evidently testified to good health and a strong constitution, pleased him.He's also pleased with his stylish attire, from the tie that matches the color of his shirt to the yellow leather shoes. He looked at the photographs and in the mirror, while Samoylenko was bustling about in the kitchen and in the antechamber next to it, shirtless and waistless, bare-chested, excited, dripping with sweat, bustling about at the table, He was mixing lettuce or making a seasoning, or cutting beef, cucumbers, and onions for giblet soup, while he stared viciously at the orderly who was cooking for him, now brandishing a kitchen knife at him, now Wave the ladle. "Bring vinegar!" he ordered. "It's not vinegar, it's olive oil!" he cried, stamping his foot. "But where are you going, beast?" "Get the butter, my lord," said the frightened orderly in a high trembling voice. "Come on! It's in the cupboard! Tell Dahlia to put some fennel in the cucumber jar! Fennel! Cover the sour cream, you so-so fellow, or the flies will fly in!" When he yelled it didn't matter, it seemed that the whole house rang.Ten or fifteen minutes before two o'clock the deacon came.He is a young man of about twenty-two years old, lean, with long hair, no beard, and a mustache that is too thin to be seen.As soon as he entered the living room, he crossed himself against the statue, smiled, and held out a hand to von Koren. "Good day," said the zoologist coldly, "where have you been?" "Going to the pier to catch gobies." "Well, of course. . . . It seems, deacon, that you'll never be busy with work." "Why bother? Work is not a bear to run into the woods," said the deacon, smiling, and putting his hand into the deep pocket of his white cassock, which he wore under his cassock. "It's a pity that no one came to beat you!" said the zoologist, sighing. After another fifteen to twenty minutes, no one came to ask them to eat.The orderly could still be heard running from the hall into the kitchen and back again, his boots rattling, and Samoylenko shouted: "Put it on the table! Where are you putting it? Wash it first!" The starving deacon and von Koren began to stamp their heels on the floor to show that they were anxiously waiting, like spectators in the upper balconies of a theatre.At last the door opened, and the exhausted orderly announced: "Dinner is ready!" In the dining room, Samoylenko, purple in the face and sweating from the heat of the kitchen, was waiting for them with an angry expression. he looked at them ferociously, and with a fearful expression on his face, he lifted the lid of the soup-bowl, and filled them both with a plateful of soup, which he did not relax until he believed that they enjoyed it and liked it. Taking a deep breath, he sat down on his deep armchair.There was a look of ecstasy, sweetness, and tenderness on his face. ...He poured himself a glass of white wine without haste, and said, "Cheers to the health of the younger generation!" Ever since his conversation with Laevsky, Samoylenko, from morning until lunchtime, had always felt a heavy weight in his soul, although he was in the best of spirits.He pitied Laevsky and wanted to help him.He drank a glass of vodka before the soup, sighed: "I saw Vanya Laevsky today. The man's life is very difficult. The material aspects of his life are not satisfactory, but the main It's psychologically uncomfortable. This young man is very poor." "I have no pity for such a man!" said von Koren. "If this lovely man stumbles overboard, I'll give him another push with the cane: drown, man, drown. . . . " "That's a lie. You wouldn't do that." "Why do you think so?" said the zoologist, shrugging his shoulders. "I will do good things just like you." "Is it a good thing to drown people?" asked the deacon, laughing. "Drowning Laevsky? That's a good thing." "There seems to be something missing in the cold soup..." said Samoylenko, intending to change the subject. "Laevsky is absolutely harmful, no less dangerous to society than the cholera germ," said von Koren. "Drowning him is a matter of great merit." "You don't do yourself any favors when you talk about your friend like that. Tell me: why do you hate him?" "Don't talk nonsense, doctor. It is stupid to hate and despise germs, but to regard everyone you meet, indiscriminately, as a friend, then, thank you very much, it is indiscriminate, unwilling to take justice to people in a word, it is irresponsible. I think your Laevsky is a villain, I do not hide it, and I treat him like a villain in all good conscience. Well, you put him As your friend, then go kiss him. You regard him as your friend, that is to say, you treat him as you treat me and the deacon, or roughly the same. You treat all It doesn't matter at all." "Call people bad!" muttered Samoylenko, frowning in disgust. "This sucks, I don't even know what to say to you!" "Judging people should be based on people's actions," von Koe continued. "Now judge, deacon. . . . Let me talk to you, deacon. Mr. Laevsky's activities are laid out before you like a long Chinese line, which you can read from the beginning. The end. He lived here for two years, what did he do? We can tell you one by one. First, he taught the residents of this city to play Vent. Two years ago, people here did not understand this. It is a kind of game, but now, everyone, even women and boys, play Wendt all the time. Second, he taught the townspeople to drink beer, which people here have never understood before; in his favor, The townspeople have just learned about the different kinds of spirits, and now, even if they are blindfolded, they can still tell which is Koselev and which is Smirnov No. 21. Thirdly, in the past, men here used to commit adultery with other people's wives in secret, for the same reason that a thief steals secretly without knowing it. Adultery is always considered a shameful thing, but Laev Ski pioneered this by living openly with other people's wives. Fourth..." Von Koren quickly finished his cold soup and passed the plate to the orderly. "I have known Laevsky from the first month of my acquaintance," he went on to the deacon. "We got here at the same time. Guys like him always love friendship, intimacy, solidarity, because they're always in need of a company to play with them, to drink, to eat, and besides, they like to gossip. , then they need someone to listen to them. We became friends, that is to say, he hangs out at my place every day, gets in the way of my work, talks about his mistress without hesitation. From the beginning, his unusual The lie surprised me secretly, it made me nauseous. I blamed him as a friend, why did he drink so much wine, why he lived beyond his means, was in debt, why he didn't do anything, what books I don’t even look at why they are so uneducated and know so little. When he answered my questions, he smiled wryly, sighed, and said, “I am a frustrated person, a superfluous person, or, “You want us to What about these remnants of serfdom?' Or, 'We have degenerated...' Otherwise, he babbles about Onegin, Picholine, Byron's Cain, Bazarov Lah. He always said of them: 'They are our physical and spiritual fathers'.That is to say, you have to understand that it is not his fault that government documents have been left unopened for weeks on end, nor is it his fault that he has drunk himself and ordered others to drink. King, Picholin, and Turgenev, who wrote about frustrated people and superfluous people.You see, the reason for his extreme debauchery and absurdity is not in him, but somewhere outside him. Again, what an ingenious idea!It turns out that he is not the only one who is dissolute, hypocritical, and dirty, but us...'We people of the 80s', 'We are weak and neurotic descendants of serfdom', 'We have been victimized by civilization' ... In a word, we have to understand that a great man like Laevsky is still great even in his degeneration.His licentiousness, his lack of education, his baseness, is a natural and historical phenomenon, sanctified by inevitability, and the reasons for it are cosmopolitan and spontaneous, for which reason Laevsky There should be an ever-burning lamp before him, for he is an unfortunate victim of age, fashion, heredity, and so on.All the clerks and wives listened to him with admiration, but for a long time I could not figure out whether the man I was dealing with was a cynic or a clever liar.A person like him who is an intellectual on the surface but is actually half-knowledgeable and tries to boast of his elegance is good at pretending to have an extremely complicated personality. " "Shut up!" said Samoylenko, irritated. "I will not allow a very noble person to be spoken so badly in front of me!" "Don't interrupt, Alexander Daviditch," said von Koren calmly. "I'm about to finish. Laevsky is a rather simple organism. His mental skeleton is this: in the morning, loafers, bath, coffee, after that until lunchtime, loafers, walk, talk, two o'clock in the afternoon clock, loafers, lunch, wine, five o'clock, bath, tea, wine, then Went, lying, ten o'clock, supper, wine, and after midnight, sleep, la femme. His life consisted of In this narrow framework, it is like an egg in its shell. Whether he walks, sits, gets angry, writes, or feels happy, it can all be attributed to wine, cards, sandals, and women. Women played a decisive and overwhelming role in his life. He himself said that he fell in love at the age of thirteen and had an affair with a woman who had treated him well when he was just a freshman in college. Influenced by her, he received his musical education from her. He went to the second year of college, bought a whore from a brothel for money, and raised her to his level, that is, called her his mistress, but She lived with him for half a year, then ran back to the madam, and the incident caused him much mental distress. Well, he suffered so much that he left the university and lived at home for two years without doing any work. But, it was even better. At home, he hooked up with a widow, and she persuaded him to leave the law department and transfer to the language department. He did so. After he graduated, he fell in love with the current... What do you say?... A married woman had to go to the Caucasus with her, it is said that she did it for ideals... Either today or tomorrow, he will stop loving her and go back to Petersburg, and That's ideal too." "But how do you know?" muttered Samoylenko, looking angrily at the zoologist. "You'd better eat." At this time it was served stewed mullet with polish sauce.Samoylenko gave each of his two companions a whole mullet and poured them the Polish sauce himself.They passed two minutes in silence. "Women play an important role in every man's life," said the deacon. "It's unthinkable." "Yes, but to what extent? To each of us a woman is mother, sister, wife, friend; but to Laevsky she is everything and at the same time only a mistress. Woman, That is to say, living with a woman has become the happiness and goal of his life; his happiness, sorrow, boredom, and disillusionment are all due to the woman; life makes him bored, and it is also the fault of the woman. The dawn of a new life shines, When the ideal appears, it is time to find a woman again....Whether it is a work or a picture, there must be a woman in it to satisfy him. In his opinion, our era is not good because it is better than that of the 1940s and 1960s. The difference in ten years is only because we are not good at indulging in the lingering love and lust to the point of ecstasy. In the brains of these lecherous people, most of them have growths similar to sarcoma, which suppress their brains and direct their entire body. Mental activity. Whenever Laevsky sits in a social place, you have only to watch and you will find that if anyone asks him a general question, such as a question of cells or instincts, he just sits aside and says nothing. and doesn't listen to what people say. He looks listless, disappointed, disinterested in everything, and finds everything vulgar and boring; however, as soon as you talk about males and females, for example, when female spiders always take the males after fertilization. When a spider eats it, his eyes will shine with curiosity, his face will be bright, and in a word, he will live. All his thoughts, no matter how noble, noble, or calm, will always have this one thing in common. You walk with him in the street, say, and meet a donkey.  … He will ask: "Excuse me, tell me what would happen if you let a donkey mate with a camel Sample? 'And those dreams!Did he tell you about his dreams?Really brilliant!Now he dreamed that he was marrying the moon, and now he dreamed that he was called by the police to marry a banjo. . . . " The deacon laughed loudly. Samoylenko frowned and scowled angrily, so as not to laugh, but couldn't help it, and laughed too. "It's all bullshit!" he said, wiping away tears. "Really, bullshit!" "Notes" ① Onegin is the protagonist in Pushkin's "Evgeny Onegin"; Bi Qiaolin is the protagonist in Lermontov's "Contemporary Heroes"; Cain is the protagonist in Byron's poetic drama "Cain". The hero of the book; Bazarov is the hero of Turgenev's novel. ②French: woman. three In order to relieve boredom and understand the plight of the newcomers without their families who have no place to eat because there is no hotel in the city, military medical officer Samoylenko did one thing for them: provide them with meals in his own home .During this period, only two people joined his family: the young zoologist von Koren, who came this summer to study jellyfish embryos by the Black Sea, and the deacon Pobedov, who Not long ago he had graduated from a religious school, and had been sent to this town to take the place of an old deacon who was out to heal.The two of them paid twelve rubles each month for lunch and dinner, and Samoylenko made them promise to come to lunch at two o'clock on time. The first to arrive was, as usual, von Koren.He sat down in the living room without making a sound, took a photo album from the table, and began to carefully look at the faded photos. In the photos, there were some unknown men in fat trousers and top hats, and some women. , wearing a bell skirt and a cap.Samoylenko only remembered the names of a few of them, and he always admired those whose names he had forgotten: "That is a very outstanding, talented and wise man!" After reading the photo album, von Korenko , took a pistol from the cubicle, squinted his left eye, and aimed for a long time at the portrait of Prince Vorontsov, or else he stopped in front of a mirror and looked at his dark face, with its large forehead, Curly hair like a negro, a dark cloth shirt with a large pattern like the one on a Persian rug, and a wide belt instead of a waistcoat.对他来说，观察自己大概比看照片或者玩那装在贵重的柜子里的手枪更愉快。他的脸也好，他那剪得漂亮的胡子也好，他那显然可以证明健康良好和体质茁壮的肩膀也好，都使他觉得很满意。他也满意他那从配合衬衫颜色的领结到黄色皮鞋的时髦装束。 他端详照片，照镜子，而萨莫依连科却在厨房和它旁边的前堂里忙碌，他没穿上衣和坎肩，袒露着胸脯，神情兴奋，大汗淋漓，在桌子旁边忙忙乱乱，他在拌生菜或者做一种调味的佐料，再不然就切牛肉、黄瓜、葱，以便做冷杂拌汤，同时恶狠狠地瞪起眼睛瞧着帮他烹调的勤务兵，时而对他挥舞菜刀，时而挥舞汤瓢。 “拿醋来！”他命令道。“这不是醋，这是橄榄油！”他嚷着，跺脚。“可是你上哪儿去，畜生？” “去拿黄油，大人，”惊慌的勤务兵用发颤的高音说。 “快点！它在柜子里！你告诉达丽雅，叫她往黄瓜罐里添点茴香！茴香！把酸奶油盖上，你这个马马虎虎的家伙，要不然苍蝇就飞上去了！” 他一喊不要紧，仿佛整个房子都响起来了。离两点钟还差十分或者十五分钟，助祭也来了。他是个二十二岁左右的青年，长得精瘦，头发很长，没留胡子，唇髭也少得看不大出来。他走进客厅，就对着神像在胸前画个十字，微微笑着，向冯·柯连伸出一只手来。 “您好，”动物学家冷冷地说，“您到哪儿去了？” “到码头上去捉鰕虎鱼来着。” “嗯，当然。……看来，助祭，您永远也不会忙着干工作的。” “何必忙呢？工作又不是熊，不会跑进树林里去的，”助祭说，笑吟吟的，把手伸进他那穿在法衣下面的白色长衣的很深的口袋里。 “可惜没有人来打您一顿！”动物学家说，叹了口气。 又过了十五分到二十分钟，还没有人来叫他们去吃饭。仍旧可以听见勤务兵从前堂跑进厨房，再跑回去，皮靴登登地响，萨莫依连科嚷道：“把它放在桌子上！你往哪儿塞啊？先洗干净！” 挨饿的助祭和冯·柯连开始用鞋后跟跺地板，借此表示他们等得心焦了，就象剧院里高层楼座的看客一样。最后，房门总算开了，累得要命的勤务兵通报说：“开饭了！”在饭厅里，萨莫依连科脸色发紫，给厨房的热气弄得汗流浃背，带着气呼呼的神情正在等待他们；他凶恶地瞧着他们，脸上带着害怕的神情揭开汤钵的盖子，给他们两人各舀满一盘汤，直到相信他们喝得津津有味，喜欢喝这种汤，他这才轻松地吁一口气，在他那把深深的圈椅上坐下。他的脸上现出陶然心醉、甜蜜温柔的神情。……他不慌不忙地给自己斟上一杯白酒，说：“为年轻一代的健康干杯！” 自从跟拉耶甫斯基谈过话以后，萨莫依连科从早晨起一直到吃午饭，尽管心绪十分好，却总觉得心灵深处压着一块沉重的东西。他怜惜拉耶甫斯基，想帮助他。他在喝汤以前喝下一杯白酒，叹口气说：“我今天看见万尼亚·拉耶甫斯基了。这个人的日子很不好过。他生活的物质方面不能令人满意，不过主要的是心理上很不好受。这个小伙子很可怜。” “我才不会可怜这种人呢！”冯·柯连说。“要是这个可爱的男子失足落水，那我就会再用手杖推他一下：淹死吧，老兄，淹死吧。……”“这是假话。你不会这么做的。” “你为什么这样想呢？”动物学家耸耸肩膀说。“我跟你一样也会做好事的。” “难道淹死人也算是好事？”助祭问，笑起来。 “淹死拉耶甫斯基？这是好事。” “冷杂拌汤里好象缺点什么，……”萨莫依连科说，打算改变话题。 “拉耶甫斯基是绝对有害的，对社会的危险性不下于霍乱细菌，”冯·柯连说。“淹死他是一件功德无量的事。” “你照这样讲你的朋友，是不会给你添什么光彩的。你说说看：你为什么痛恨他？” “不要说废话，大夫。痛恨和藐视细菌是愚蠢的，然而把自己所遇到的人，不分青红皂白，一概看做朋友，那么，多谢多谢，这是不辨是非，不肯对人采取公正的态度，一句话，这是不负责任。我认为你的拉耶甫斯基是个坏蛋，我并没掩盖这一点，而且完全本着良心，象对待坏蛋那样对待他。哼，你却把他看做你的朋友，那你就跟他接吻去吧。你把他看做你的朋友，这就是说，你对待他跟你对待我和助祭一样，或者说，大体一样。你对所有的人一概无所谓。” “把人说成坏蛋！”萨莫依连科嘟哝说，厌恶地皱起眉头。 “这简直糟透了，我都不知道该怎么跟你说好了！” “判断人要以人的行动为依据，”冯·柯连接着说。“现在请您判断吧，助祭。……我来跟您谈一下，助祭。拉耶甫斯基先生的活动明明白白地摊在您的面前，好比中国的长长的一行字，您可以从头读到尾。他在这儿住了两年，都干了些什么？我们可以扳着手指头一件件的来讲。第一，他教会本城的居民们玩文特，两年以前此地人不懂这种赌博，可是现在，所有的人，连女人和少年也都一天到晚玩文特了。第二，他教会市民们喝啤酒，这儿的人本来也没领略过这东西；承他的情，市民们才弄懂了各种不同的白酒，所以现在即使用布把他们的眼睛蒙上，他们也还是能辨别哪种是柯谢列夫牌，哪种是斯米尔诺夫牌第二十一号。第三，从前此地的男人跟别人的妻子私通是在暗地里干的，原因就跟贼在暗地里偷东西而不明着干一样。通奸素来给人看做一种见不得人的事，然而拉耶甫斯基在这方面做了开路先锋，他公开跟别人的老婆同居。第四……”冯·柯连很快地喝完冷杂拌汤，把盘子递给勤务兵。 “我跟拉耶甫斯基相识以后，从头一个月起就看透他了，”他接着对助祭说。“我们是同时到达此地的。象他那样的人总很喜欢友谊啦，亲近啦，团结之类的东西，因为他们老是需要有同伴陪他们玩文特，喝酒，吃饭，况且，他们喜欢闲谈，那就需要有人听他们讲话。我们交成朋友了，那就是说，他每天逛荡到我这儿来，妨碍我工作，毫无顾忌地讲他情妇的事。从一开头，他那不同寻常的谎话就使我暗暗吃惊，简直惹得我要呕。我以朋友的身份责备他，说他何苦喝这么多的酒，为什么生活得入不敷出，欠下了债，为什么一点事也不做，什么书也不看，为什么这么缺乏修养，知道得这么少。他回答我这些问题的时候，却苦笑着，叹口气，说，'我是个失意的人，多余的人隘，或者说，'您要我们这些农奴制的残余怎么样呢？'或者说，'我们退化了……'要不然，他就废话连篇，讲起奥涅金啦，毕巧林啦，拜伦的该隐啦，巴扎罗夫①啦。他讲到他们，总是说：”他们就是我们肉体上和精神上的父亲'。这就是说，你们得明白，政府的公文一连好几个星期丢在那儿不拆封并不是他的过错，他自己喝酒而且叫别人喝酒也不是他的过错，该对这类事负责的倒是奥涅金、毕巧林以及写过失意的人和多余的人的屠格涅夫。您看，他极度放荡和荒唐的原因并不在他本身，却在他外面的什么地方。 再者，多么巧妙的想法！原来放荡、虚伪、肮脏的不单是他一个人，而是我们……'我们这些八十年代的人'，'我们这些软弱的和神经质的农奴制子孙'，'我们受了文明的害'……一句话，我们得明白，象拉耶甫斯基这样伟大的人就是在堕落当中也还是伟大的。他的放荡、缺乏教养、卑鄙龌龊，是一种自然现象和历史现象，由于不可避免而变得神圣了，其中的原因是带有世界性和自发性的，为此，在拉耶甫斯基面前应当点上长明灯，因为他是时代、潮流、遗传等等的不幸的牺牲品。所有的文官和太太听他讲话，都止不住赞叹，可是我很久都弄不明白，跟我打交道的这个人究竟是个愤世嫉俗者呢，还是个灵巧的骗子。象他这种表面上是个知识分子而实际上一知半解、竭力吹嘘自己高雅的人，是善于装得性格异常复杂的。 " “闭嘴！”萨莫依连科说，冒火了。“我不容许在我面前把一个极高尚的人说得这么坏！” “你别打岔，亚历山大·达维狄奇，”冯·柯连冷静地说。 “我就要说完了。拉耶甫斯基是相当简单的有机体。他精神的骨架是这样：早晨，是便鞋、洗澡、咖啡，这以后直到午饭前，是便鞋、散步、谈话，下午两点钟，是便鞋、午饭、酒，五点钟，是洗澡、茶、酒，然后玩文特、说谎，十点钟，是晚饭、酒，午夜以后，是睡眠、 la femme②。他的生活就包含在这个狭窄的框架里，好比鸡蛋包在蛋壳里。他走路也好，坐着也好，生气也好，写字也好，高兴也好，全都可以归结到酒、纸牌、便鞋、女人上。女人在他的生活里占决定性的和压倒一切的地位。他自己说过，他十三岁堕入情网，刚做一年级大学生就跟一位太太私通，那女人对他有过良好的影响，他在她那儿受到音乐教育。他读到大学二年级，花钱从妓院里赎出一个妓女，把她的地位提得跟他一般高，也就是说，叫她做他的情妇，可是她跟他同居了半年，就跑回鸨母那儿去了，这件事使他精神上受到不少痛苦。唉，他痛苦极了，只好离开大学，在家里住了两年，什么工作也没做。可是，这反而更好。在家里，他勾搭上一个寡妇，她劝他脱离法律系，转到语文系。他照这样做了。他毕业以后，热烈地爱上了现在这个……该怎么说呢？……有夫之妇，不得不跟她一同跑到高加索来，据说是为了理想才这样做的。……不是今天就是明天，他又会不再爱她，跑回彼得堡，而且那也是为了理想。” “可你怎么知道的？”萨莫依连科嘟哝说，气愤地瞧着动物学家。“你还是吃饭的好。” 这时候端上来炖鲻鱼加波兰酱汁。萨莫依连科给两个搭伙的客人每人一整条鲻鱼，亲自给他们倒上波兰酱汁。他们在沉默中过了两分钟。 “女人在每个男人的生活里都占重大的地位，”助祭说。 “这是没法可想的。” “不错，可是重大到什么程度呢？对我们每个人来说，女人是母亲，姐妹，妻子，朋友；然而对拉耶甫斯基来说，女人成了一切，同时又仅仅是情妇。女人，也就是说跟女人姘居，成了他生活的幸福和目标；他快活，忧愁，烦闷，幻灭，那都是由于女人；生活使他厌烦，那也得怪女人不对。新生活的曙光亮起来，理想出现了，那就又要找女人。……作品也好，图画也好，其中必得有女人才能使他满意。我们这个时代，依他看来，其所以不好，比四十年代和六十年代差，也只是因为我们不善于在恋爱的缠绵和情欲里沉湎到忘我的地步罢了。在这些好色之徒的脑子里，多半有着近似肉瘤的赘生物，它压住脑子，指挥他们的全部心理活动。每逢拉耶甫斯基在一个社交场合坐着，你们只要观察一下就会发现：要是有人在他面前提出一般的问题，例如细胞或者本能问题，他就坐在一旁，闷声不响，也不听人家说话。他显得没精打采，失望，对什么都不感兴趣，觉得一切都庸俗，无聊；不过，只要你们谈到公的和母的，例如谈到雌蜘蛛在受精以后总是把雄蜘蛛吃掉，他的眼睛就会由于好奇心而发亮，他的脸色就会开朗，一句话，他活了。所有他的思想，不管多么高尚，多么崇高，多么冷静，永远有这么一个共同的会合点。你跟他一块儿在街上走，比方说，遇见一头驴。……他就会问：”劳驾，请您说说看，要是让一头母驴同一头骆驼交配，那会怎么样？'还有那些梦！他跟您讲过他那些梦吗？真是精采！一忽儿他梦见跟月亮结婚，一忽儿又梦见被警察叫去，要他跟一把六弦琴结婚。……“助祭扬声大笑。萨莫依连科皱起眉头，生气地虎着脸，免得笑出来，可是到底忍不住，也笑起来了。 “这全是胡扯！”他说，擦干眼泪。“真的，胡扯！” "Notes" ①奥涅金是普希金的《叶甫盖尼·奥涅金》中的主人公；毕巧林是莱蒙托夫的《当代英雄》中的主人公；该隐是拜伦的诗体剧《该隐》中的主人公；巴扎罗夫是屠格涅夫的中的主人公。 ②法语：女人。