Chapter 10 "Wife" II

two It turned out that from twenty-five to thirty-five years ago, in this house, a lot of acquaintances drank, dined, attended masquerade balls, made love, married, and talked about their fine-bred hounds and horses. , and now only Ivan Ivanitch Bratin is left alive in this large group.He used to be very active, eloquent, high-pitched, easy to fall in love, known for his violent thoughts and a special expression on his face that captivated not only women but also men.But now that he is old and fat, waiting to die, he can't talk about thoughts and expressions.He came the next evening after my letter, when the servants in the dining-room had just brought the samovar, and little Marya Gerasimovna was cutting lemons.

"I am glad to see you, my friend," I said cheerfully, going up to meet him. "But you're getting fatter!" "I'm not fat, I'm bloated," he replied. "I was stung by a bee." The man who laughed at himself for being fat put his arms around my waist in a careless manner, and placed his big soft head with a lock of hair hanging on the forehead like a Ukrainian on my chest. On the ground, let out a series of thin old laughter. "You're getting younger!" he said, smiling. "I don't know what paint you used to dye your hair and beard. I should give you some." He gasped, hugged me, and kissed my face. "I should have some," he said. "But, dear, are you forty?"

"Hey, I'm already forty-six!" I laughed. Ivan Ivanitch smelled of candle oil and of the kitchen, which suited him.On his fat, bloated, stupid body was stretched a very long dress, like a coachman's robe, with no buttons, only hooks and eyes, and a high waist; It will be strange. On his double chin was a burdock-like beard that had not been shaved for a long time, and his complexion was blue; His voice and words are not pleasant, in short, with these, it is difficult for people to recognize him as the well-proportioned, attractive, and well-spoken man that husbands in this county were worried that their wives would be seduced by him.

"I need you very much, my friend," I said, as we sat down to tea in the dining room. "I'm interested in organizing a relief organization for the hungry, and I don't know how to get started. You might be able to give me an idea, then." "Yes, yes, yes . . . " said Ivan Ivanitch, sighing. "exactly.……" "I didn't want to startle you, but really, dear friend, I can hardly find anyone else here except you. You know what kind of people they are here." "Yes, yes, yes. . . . Yes. . . . " I thought to myself: what is to be discussed is a serious business, and everyone, regardless of their position and personal relationship, can participate, so why don't I invite Natalya Gavrilovna come?

"Tres faciunt collegium!" I said cheerfully. "How about we invite Natalya Gavrilovna? ​​What do you think? Fenya," I said, turning to the maid, "Natalia Gavrilovna please." Na come upstairs to our place, at once if possible. Just say it's something very important." After a while Natalya Gavrilovna came.I stood up to greet her and said, "Forgive us for disturbing you, Natalie. We are discussing a very important matter here, and we are delighted to think that we can borrow some good ideas from you. You will not refuse us such a request." Yes. Sit down, please."

Ivan Ivanitch kissed Natalya Gavrilovna's hand, and she kissed his forehead.Then they sat down at the table, and he looked at her with tears in his eyes, leaned over her, and kissed her hand again.She was wearing a black dress, her hair was carefully combed, and she smelled of fresh perfume. It was obvious that she was planning to go out for a visit or waiting for someone to visit.It pleased me that she had just come into the dining-room, held out her hand to me in an unrestrained, kindly manner, and smiled at me as politely as she had done to Ivan Ivanitch.However, when she was talking, she kept moving her fingers, and she often leaned back on the chair suddenly, speaking quickly. This impetuous posture of speech and movements made me unhappy, and reminded me of her hometown of Odessa, When I used to associate with the men and women there, their vulgar demeanor annoyed me.

"I want to do something for the hungry," I said, and after a moment of silence, I went on: "Needless to say, money is a big thing, but if you limit yourself to donations and be content with it, that's tantamount to avoiding the most important thing." Trouble. Helping the hungry should be manifested in money, but the main thing should be manifested in correct and serious organization. Friends, let us think about it and contribute something." Natalya Gavrilovna looked at me inquiringly, shrugged her shoulders, as if to say: "How do I know about such things?"

"Yes, yes, hunger . . . " murmured Ivan Ivanitch. "Really. . . . Yeah. . . . " "The situation is serious," I said, "and rapid relief is necessary. I think that, of all the principles we have now to lay down, the first one should be rapidity. As in the military, the quickness of action and the fury of the attack. " "Yes, hurry up . . . " said Ivan Ivanitch, listlessly, as though on the verge of falling asleep. "But there is no way. The crops are not harvested, so what's the use of empty words.... No matter how quick the action is, a fierce attack will not work.... This is the wrong time....Man can't resist God and fate.

..." "Yes, but you must know that people have brains to fight against the weather." "Ah? Yes. . . . That's true, yes. . . . Yes." Ivan Ivanitch covered his nose with his handkerchief, sneezed, refreshed, and looked at me and my wife as if he had just woken up. "I don't get anything there, either," he said, laughing shrillly, poking his eyes mischievously, as if the thing were actually funny. "No money, no food, no food, but the yard is full of workers, just like Count Sergey Mecheyev's house. I intend to drive them out, but it seems that I can't bear it."

Natalya Gavrilovna laughed, and began to ask about Ivan Ivanitch's family.I felt a pleasure in her presence that I hadn't felt in a long time.I dared not look at her, lest my gaze should betray my innermost feelings. Our relationship has become so rigid that such feelings would seem abrupt and ridiculous.My wife talked and laughed with Ivan Ivanitch.Even though she was in my room, even though I wasn't smiling, she didn't feel at all restrained. "So, friends, what shall we do?" I asked, waiting as soon as they stopped talking. "I think first of all we need to hurry up and get people to donate. Natalie, we're writing to our friends in the capital and Odessa asking for donations. When we get a handful of money, we're going to buy food and animal feed .

As for you, Ivan Ivanitch, please take care of distributing the money.We count on you to show your original shrewdness and ability in every way, and we only venture to express our wish that you go to the local area to get a close look at all the circumstances before distributing the money.In addition, there is another very important thing, that is to carefully supervise, so that food is only distributed to those who really need it, and never to drunkards, lazy people, and people who resell food. " "Yes, yes, yes . . . " murmured Ivan Ivanitch. "exactly.……" "Hey, there's nothing you can do with a bad old man like that," I thought, getting annoyed. "These starving people are making me sick to death, get out of them! They're always angry, always angry," went on Ivan Ivanitch, sucking the peel of a lemon. "The hungry are always indignant against the full. And the ones who have food are indignant against the hungry. Yes. . . Savage. Hunger is no joke. A starving man swears, steals, and maybe worse.  …One has to understand that." Ivan Ivanitch choked on his tea, coughed, and then uttered a shrill, mouse-like laugh, which made him breathless and trembling. "'There was a battle on the outskirts of Poltava!'③ " he said with difficulty. He laughed again He coughed again, which prevented him from speaking, so he could only wave his hands. "'There was a battle on the outskirts of Poltava!' It was about three years after the emancipation of the serfs, and there was a famine in both of our districts, and Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who is now dead, drove to my house. Come, ask me to come to him. 'Let's go, let's go,' he kept pestering me, as if holding a knife to my neck. 'All right, let's go,' I said. Okay, let's go. This happened in the evening when it was snowing. It was not until night that our carriage came not far from his estate, but suddenly there was a bang in the woods, and then another. 'Hey, fuck! '...I jumped off the sled and saw a man running towards me in the dark with his knees out of the snow.I grabbed his shoulder with one hand, like this, and knocked the weapon out of his hand with one punch, and then another one came, and I aimed to punch him on the back of the head. Down in the snow.At that time, I was strong and my hands were heavy, and I was alone against the two of them. Then I saw Fei Jia⑤ riding on the third one.We'll grab all three of these rascals, tie their hands behind their backs so they don't mess with us again, and take these idiots into the kitchen.We hated them, but were ashamed to look at them: these were peasants we knew well, good people, and anyone would feel sorry for them.For their part, they were petrified.One cried and begged for mercy, one looked like a wild animal and cursed, and one knelt down to pray to God.I said to Fei Jia: Don't hate them, let them bastards go!He fed them, gave them a pood of flour each, and let them go: "Go your way!" That's how it happened. . . . Indignation, but some people are indignation, how many people have been entrapped! Yes. . . . In the case of the Klochkov Hotel alone, eleven people were sent to do hard labor. Yes.  … Now Well, you see, there is such a thing. . . . The court inspector Anisiying stayed at my house last Thursday and told me about a landowner. . . . Yes. . . . It was vandalized and twenty large sacks of rye were stolen. In the morning when the landowner knew that there was a crime in the house, he telegraphed the prefect, then the prosecutor, the county police chief, and The court inspector telegraphed. . . . Of course, everyone is afraid of such troublemakers. . . "Let me interrupt, Ivan Ivanitch," I said. "Twenty sacks of rye were stolen from me, and I telegraphed to the prefect. I also telegraphed to Petersburg. But it was not at all out of trouble, as you say, Nor is it because I am indignant. I look at everything first and foremost on principle. There is no difference in law whether theft is committed by a well-fed or a hungry man." "Yes, yes . . . " stammered Ivan Ivanitch, embarrassed. "Of course. . . . yes, yes. . . . " Natalya Gavrilovna blushed. "There are such people ..." she said, but stopped again; trying to control herself, she pretended not to care, but she couldn't bear it, and looked at me with a hatred I was so familiar with. "There are people," she said, "whose hunger and human misery exist only to give them an opportunity to vent their nasty and dull tempers upon these suffering beings. " I panicked and shrugged my shoulders. "I want to talk in general," she went on, "some people are so indifferent that they lack compassion at all, but such people are not willing to let go of the suffering of the world, and they want to intervene, lest they will be lost without them." Work. Nothing is sacred to their vanity." "Some people," I said softly, "are angelic in character, but they express their brilliant thoughts in such a way that it is difficult to tell whether they are angels or peddlers in the Odessa market." I admit, that doesn't make sense. My wife looked at me for a while, and it seemed like she had a hard time not talking back.Her gratuitous tantrum followed by an inappropriate commentary on my desire to help the hungry was at least inappropriate.I had invited her upstairs in the expectation that she would be quite different to me and my intentions.I cannot say exactly what it was that I expected, but it gave me a pleasant excitement.But now I can see that it is difficult, and perhaps uninteresting, to talk about the starving people. "Yes . . . " murmured Ivan Ivanitch incredulously. "Merchant Brough has four hundred thousand, maybe more. I said to him, "You set aside one or two million to help the starving, my namesake sir."Anyway, you are going to die, and you will not be able to take the money with you when you die. 'He was angry.But then again, everyone is going to die.Death is no joke. " Silence followed. "There seems to be only one way to do it, so I'll have to do it alone," I said, sighing. "That's what it means to be alone. Oh, well! Then I'll try to fight alone. Maybe it's easier to fight hunger than indifference." "Someone is waiting for me downstairs," said Natalya Gavrilovna.She got up from the table, turned to Ivan Ivanitch and said: "Then come down to me downstairs in a moment, then? I don't want to say goodbye yet." she left. Ivan Ivanitch had already drunk his seventh cup of tea, was panting, was licking his lips, now sucking his mustache, now the lemon peel.He was lethargic and chattering listlessly.I didn't listen to him, I just hoped that he would go.At last, with the air that he seemed to have come to me purely for a feast of tea, he got up and began to take his leave.I sent him out and said, "Well, you haven't given me any advice." "Huh? I'm a bad old man, out of my wits," he replied. "What can I do? You shouldn't worry about it. . . . Really, I don't know why you should. Don't worry about it, my dear! Really, it doesn't matter." No..." he whispered affectionately and sincerely, comforting me like a child. "Really, nothing! . . . " "How can there be 'nothing'? The peasants have pulled the hay off the roof, and it is said that typhoid fever has hit some places." "Oh, so what? There'll be a crop next year, and a new roof. Even if we die of typhoid, there'll be someone else alive after us. Everybody's going to die anyway, either now or later." .Don't worry about it, my handsome boy!" "I can't help worrying," I said angrily. We stopped in the dimly lit vestibule.Ivan Ivanitch suddenly seized my elbow, intending to say something obviously important, and looked at me in silence for half a minute. "Pavel Andreitch!" he whispered, and suddenly there appeared in his fat, stony face and in his dark eyes the peculiar expression which had made him famous in the first place. The expression is really moving. "Pavel Andreitch, I say to you as a friend: Change your temper! You are hard to live with! Good friends, hard to live with!" He fixed his eyes on my face.His fine look was gone, his eyes were clouded, and he was listless, panting, and muttered, "Yes, yes. . . . Forgive me, old man. . . . I'm talking nonsense. . . . . . . " He lumbered down the stairs, arms outstretched for support, and turned his fat back and the back of his red head straight at me, giving me an unpleasant crablike impression. "You ought to be out and about, sir," he grumbled. "Go to Petersburg, or go abroad. . . . Why do you waste your golden years here? You are a young man, healthy, rich. . . . Yes. . . . Well, if I were younger, I would It will run away like a rabbit and be at ease!" "Notes" ①Latin: Three people make a meeting! ②French name, equivalent to Natalia in Russia. ③ This is the first line of a song written by the unknown Russian poet Morchanov (1809-1881).This song is written about the victory of the Russian army in Poltava in the Northern War (1700-1721) between Russia and Sweden.Here is a metaphor for a sensational event involving the participation of the general public. ——Russian text editor's note ④ Refers to the emancipation order issued by the Tsar in 1861. ⑤ Fedor's pet name.