Chapter 4 in the manor

in the manor Pavel Ilyich Rasevich walked up and down, treading lightly on the floor, which was covered with long Little Russian rugs, and cast narrow shadows on the walls and ceiling.His guest, Mayer, who acts as a court investigator, sits cross-legged on a divan, smoking and listening to him.The hour hand has already pointed to eleven o'clock, and the sound of setting the dining table can be heard in the room next to the study. "Whatever you say," said Rasiewicz, "from the point of view of fraternity, equality, and so on, the swineherd Mitka is as human as Goethe and Friedrich the Great, but if you stand on the ground of science , have the courage to face the facts squarely, and you will understand that the white bones are not prejudices, nor are they some womanly nonsense. My dear, the white bones have their own natural historical basis, denying this, in my opinion, It's as weird as denying that a deer has horns. Face the facts! You are a jurist, you have never dabbled in any science except the humanities, and you can delude yourself with illusions of equality, fraternity, etc., and I, A die-hard Darwinist, words like birth, nobility, nobility mean nothing to me."

Rasievich was emotional and spoke with emotion.His eyes were bright, and the pince-nez was no longer on his nose.He shrugged his shoulders excitedly, blinked his eyes, and when he said the word "Darwinist", he looked in the mirror masculinely and straightened his white beard with both hands.He wears a very short old jacket and a pair of tight trousers.His quickness of movement, his valiant air, and his short coat all seemed out of proportion to him, and it seemed as though his large, long-haired, dignified head, like that of an archbishop or a respected poet, was wrong. It rested on the neck of a tall, thin, pompous young man.Whenever he spread his legs wide, his long shadow was like a pair of scissors.

Generally speaking, he likes to talk, and he always thinks he has something new and original.In front of Mayer, he felt that he was very energetic and his thoughts were particularly turbulent.The inquisitor liked and delighted him by virtue of his youth, his health, his good manners, his steady manner, and, above all, his cordiality towards him and his family.On the whole, Rasievich's acquaintances disliked him, kept him away, said that he was gossiping too much, that he had driven his wife to the grave. toad.Only Mayer was a newcomer, unprejudiced, came to his house often, and was happy to come, and even said somewhere that in the whole county, there was only one with Rasievich and a few of him. When he gets along with his daughter, he feels as warm as being with his relatives.Rasiewicz liked him also because he was a young man who would make a good spouse for his eldest daughter Genya.

Meanwhile Rasievich, admiring his own thoughts and voice, looked with satisfaction at Mayer, who was not too fat, with nicely cut hair, and good manners, and thought about how to marry his Zenya A good man, and how he handed over to his son-in-law what he was anxious about the estate.Those things are so troublesome!The interest of the bank has not been paid for two installments, and various taxes and fines owed have accumulated to more than 2,000! "There is no doubt about it for me," continued Rasiewicz, with growing excitement, "that, for example, if Charles the Lionheart or Frederick the Redbeard were brave and magnanimous, these qualities would be transmitted through heredity. Passed on to his son with the gyrus and the ball of the brain. If such bravery and magnanimity are preserved in his son by education and training, and if the son marries a brave princess who is also magnanimous, then these qualities would be passed on to his grandsons, and so on, until finally these qualities became characteristic of his clan, organically penetrated into the so-called flesh and blood. Due to the strict selection of sex, due to the instinctive protection of the aristocratic family and the avoidance of status Disproportionate marriages, because the sons of nobles do not marry those who the devil knows, the noble spiritual qualities are passed down from generation to generation in a very pure way, preserved, and become more and more perfect and noble through training as the years go by. Among human beings There are beautiful things, and we should just be grateful to nature, to the correct, natural, historical, and reasonable process of all things in the world, which has tried its best to separate the white bones from the black bones for several centuries. Yes, My brother! It is not the nouveau riche born from the lower class, nor the son of a cook who gave us literature, science, art, law, honor and responsibility.... Humanity should only be grateful to the bones for these things In this respect, from a natural-historical point of view, a bad Sobakevich⑤ is better than the best businessman, even one who has built fifteen museums, just because he is a white bone. Much more beneficial, much nobler. Say what you will! If I don't shake hands with a pariah or a cook's son, and don't let him eat at my table, then I'm preserving the best things in the world. I am carrying out Mother Nature's highest instructions to lead us to perfection..." Rasievich stopped, combing his beard with both hands, and his scissors-like shadow also stopped on the wall.

"Take our Russian mother," he went on, putting his hands in his pockets, now standing on his heels, now on tiptoes. "Who are the best people in Russia? Just take our first-rate artists, writers, composers... Who are they? These people, my dear, are all representatives of the bones .Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Turgenev, Goncharov, Tolstoy, are not the sons of church lecterns!" "Goncharov came from businessman background," Mayer said. "So what! The exception affirms the rule. Besides, there is room for debate about the genius of Goncharov. But let's leave the names behind and return to the facts. For example, my husband , what will you say about the eloquent fact that nouveaux riches of inferior origin have only to go where they were not allowed to go before, for example, into high society, into science, into literature, into the localities? Dominion, get into the courts, and you'll find that nature itself will stand up first for the supreme rights of man, and be the first to declare war on these fellows. Sure enough, the untouchables will languish as soon as they get into places they don't deserve Depressed, weak, insane, degenerate; nowhere will you meet so many neurasthenics, sane people, consumptives, weak fellows of every kind as in these darlings. They are like autumn If it weren't for this life-saving degeneration, our civilization would have been wiped out, and the untouchables would have ruined it. Please take the trouble to tell me: What has this encroachment done to us up to now? What? What did those pariahs bring?" said Rasievich, with a mysterious and terrified countenance, and went on: "Never has our science and literature fallen to such a low level as it is now! Contemporary people, my Sir, there are no ideas, no ideals, and all their activities are permeated with one spirit: how to get more money, how to strip people's last shirt. All those who call themselves progressive and righteous in our time, you just have to You can buy it with a one-rouble note, and it is precisely the characteristic of the modern intelligentsia that you have to watch your pockets carefully when you are talking to him, or he will take your wallet." Sevic closed his eyes and laughed loudly.

"Really, he'll touch it!" he said cheerfully in a high-pitched voice. "Moral? What kind of morality is that? said Rasiewicz, looking back at the door. "Nowadays, it wouldn't surprise anyone if a wife stole everything from her husband and ran away. It's nothing, it's a trivial matter! Now, boy, even a girl of twelve is looking for a lover. What kind of amateur performances and literary evenings do they hold, just to hook up rich people and become his concubines. ...a mother betrays her daughter.As for the husband, he can simply ask how much he will sell his wife, and even haggle, my dear. ..." Mayer had been silent, sitting there without moving, when she suddenly stood up from the couch and glanced at the wall clock.

"I'm sorry, Pavel Ilyich," he said, "I must go home." But Pavel Ilyich, before he had finished speaking, put his arms around him, forced him to sit down on the sofa, and swore that he would never be allowed to go until he had supper.Mayer sat down again and listened to him, but looked at him with confusion and uneasiness, as if she had only now begun to understand what he was saying.A blush came over his face.Finally, when a maid came in and said that the ladies had invited them to dinner, he breathed a sigh of relief and was the first to leave the study. In the next room, at the dinner table, sat Rasievich's two daughters, Zenya, twenty-four, and Ireida, twenty-two, dark-eyed, fair-skinned, and of average stature. .Genya's hair was loose, Ireida's was combed high.Before eating, the two sisters each drank a glass of bitter wine, pretending to have drunk it by accident for the first time in their lives.Feeling embarrassed, the two sisters giggled.

"Don't mess around, girls," Rasiewicz said. Genia and Ireida spoke French to each other, and Russian to their father and guests.They rushed to talk, Russian and French words interspersed, how happy they were when they left home to go to the Noble Girls' High School at this time in previous years, that is, in August.Now they have no place to go, so they have to live in this manor, never going out all winter and summer.How boring! "Don't mess around, girls," Rasiewicz repeated. He wants to speak for himself.If other people were talking in his presence, he would feel something akin to jealousy.

"That's the way it is, my dear . . . " he began again, looking affectionately at the investigating officer. "Because of our good intentions and honesty, and because we are afraid of being suspected of being backward, please don't be surprised, we call all kinds of messy guys brothers and sisters, and promote fraternity and equality to those upstarts and hotel owners. But if we want to When we think about it deeply, we will understand what a crime we have committed with our good intentions. It doesn't matter if we do this, civilization is tied to a hair. My dear! Our ancestors have been through the ages What has been accumulated will soon be ruined and wiped out by these latest Huns..." After dinner, everyone walked into the living room.Genia and Ireida lighted the candles on the piano and put down the music. ... But their father went on and on, not knowing when it would end.They looked at their father with distress and irritability, and the pleasures of gossip and display of wit were obviously more precious and important to the egoist than the happiness of his daughters.Mayer was the only young man who came to their house regularly, and they knew he was there to socialize with these two lovely women, but the nagging old man held him back and wouldn't let him leave.

"Just like the western knights repelled the Mongols' attack before, we should unite and work together to fight our enemies before it's too late," Rasiewicz raised his right hand and continued in a missionary tone. "Let me appear not as Pavel Ilyich to the nouveau riche of inferior origin, but as the majestic, powerful and powerful Inspector the Lion, and let's stop being polite to them, that's enough! Let We all agreed that if such a low-class person approached us, we would say a few words of contempt to his ugly face: "Go away!You bastard, be quiet! 'Call at his ugly face! ' continued Rasievich excitedly, poking his bent finger forward. 'Aim at his ugly face!Swear at his ugly face! "

"I can't do that," Mayer said, looking away. "Why is that?" Rasievich asked hastily, anticipating that an interesting and lengthy debate was about to begin. "why?" "Because I am a petty citizen myself." After saying this, Mayer blushed, even his neck became thicker, and even tears flashed in his eyes. "My father was an ordinary workman," he added, in a rough voice, staccatoly, "but I see no harm in that." Rasievich was terrified and tongue-tied, as if he had been caught at the scene of a crime.He looked at Mayer in bewilderment, not knowing what to say.Genya and Iraida blushed and bent their heads closer to the music, ashamed of their reckless father.A minute passed in silence.At this embarrassing moment, another voice suddenly sounded in the air, the tone was painful and tense, which made everyone extremely ashamed: "Yes, I am a commoner, and I am proud of it." Then Mayer got up to take his leave, bumping the furniture clumsily, and walked quickly into the vestibule, though his buggy was still unhidden. "Today you will be traveling in the dark," murmured Rasievich, following him. "The moon comes up very late now." The two of them stood on the porch in the dark, waiting to be harnessed to the carriage.It's cooling down. "A star has fallen, . . . " said Mayer, wrapping her coat tightly around her. "There are always many stars falling in August." When the carriage was harnessed, Rasievich looked intently at the sky and said with a sigh: "This is a phenomenon worthy of Flammarion's description. ..." After seeing his guests off, he walked up and down the garden, gesticulating in the dark, unwilling to believe that such a strange and stupid misunderstanding had just occurred.He felt ashamed and angry with himself.First, it's too careless, too inconsiderate on his part, to talk damned about bones without first knowing who he's dealing with.It had happened to him before: once he cursed the Germans on the train, only to find out later that all the people he was talking to were Germans.Second, he figured Mayer would never come to his house again.These intellectuals of civilian origin all have morbid self-esteem, are stubborn, and love to hold grudges. "It's bad, bad..." murmured Rasievich, spitting, feeling awkward and sick, like eating soap. "Oh, this is terrible!" Looking at the window looking into the garden, he saw Genia in the drawing-room at the piano, disheveled, very pale, talking hastily with a frightened air. ... Ireida walked from corner to corner, thinking silently, but then she spoke, also quickly, with an angry face.The two sisters rushed to speak.I could not hear a word they said, but Rasievitch could guess what they were saying.Genia probably complained that her father's nagging kept all decent people away from their door, and today he drove away their only acquaintance, and probably a suitor, and now the poor There was nowhere in the county where the young man could find a place where his soul could rest.Ireida, judging by the way she raised her arms in despair, was probably talking about a dull life, about a ruined youth. ... Rashevi returned to his room, sat down on the edge of the bed, and began to undress slowly.He was depressed and still had the feeling that he had eaten soap.He felt ashamed.After taking off his clothes, he took a look at his long, old, veined legs for a while, and remembered that the people in the county had nicknamed him Toad, and remembered how embarrassed he always felt after a long conversation.Somehow, as if by fate, at first he talked softly, affectionately, and with good intentions, calling himself an old college student, an idealist, and Don Quixote, but gradually, unconsciously, he changed his tone. Insulting and slandering.The most astonishing thing is that although he has not read a single book for twenty years, has not been to a place farther than the provincial capital, and actually knows nothing about what is going on in the world; yet he criticizes science with the utmost sincerity. , art, morality.If he sat down to write something, even a letter of congratulations, he would write curse words.It's all weird because he's actually emotional and teary.Had a devil possessed him, and made him hate and slander against his will? "This is awful,..." he said, pulling the covers back and sighing. "This is terrible!" The girls didn't sleep either.Laughing and screaming could be heard, as if chasing someone: it was Genia hysterical.After a while, Ireida also began to cry.Several times the barefoot maid ran across the aisle. . . . "What happened, my lord . . . . " muttered Rasievich, sighing and tossing and turning on the bed. "This is terrible!" He has nightmares when he falls asleep.He dreamed that he was naked, standing in the middle of the room, as tall as a giraffe, poking his finger in front of him, and saying, "Aim at his ugly face! At his ugly face! At his ugly face." Swear in the face!" He woke up startled.The first thing he remembered was that there had been a misunderstanding yesterday, and of course Mayer would not be here again.He also thought about paying bank interest, marrying his daughter, and having food and drink. Now, there are only sickness, old age, and unpleasant things. Winter is coming soon, but there is no firewood yet. ...It was already past nine o'clock in the morning.Rasievich dressed slowly, drank enough tea, and ate two large loaves of bread and butter.The girls did not come out to tea, and they did not want to see him, which broke his heart.He lay down on the couch in the study for a while, then sat down at the table and began writing letters to his daughters.His hands trembled and his eyes itched.He wrote that he was old, no one wanted him, no one loved him, and he asked his daughters to forget him, and when he died, he would be buried in an ordinary pine coffin without any ceremony, Otherwise, simply send his body to the dissection room in Kharkov.It seemed to him that every line of his pen smacked of malice and affectation, but he could not stop writing, and kept writing, and writing. ... "Toad!" A shout suddenly came from the next room.It was the eldest daughter's voice, indignant, gnashing of teeth. "Toad!" "Toad!" echoed the little girl, like an echo. "Toad!" "Notes" ① That is, Friedrich II (1712-1786), the king of Prussia in the eighteenth century, vigorously promoted a policy of aggression, which almost doubled the territory of Prussia. ② "White bones" refer to nobles, and "black bones" refer to commoners. ③ Richard I (1157-1199), King of England in the twelfth century. ④ That is, Frederick I (about 1125-1190), the emperor of the "Holy Roman Empire" in the twelfth century. ⑤ A rude and stubborn landlord in Gogol's novel Dead Souls. ⑥Flamarion (1842-1925), a French astronomer, wrote many famous popular science books.