The Meeting

THE MEETING

The broad track of shimmering moonlight ran out for miles; the rest of the sea was black; the steady boom of the surf breaking upon the sandy beach struck upon the ear of the man standing above; blacker than the sea itself were the silhouettes of the ships riding at anchor in the roads; one huge steamer ("probably an Englishman," thought Vasily Petrovich) lay in the lane of moonlight hissing steam, which escaped in curling wreaths; the air wafted up from the sea had a salty tang; Vasily Petrovich, who had never seen anything like this before, feasted his eyes on the sea, the moonlight, the sailing vessels and steamers, and drew the sea air into his lungs with a zest he had never felt in his life before. He stood for a long time, revelling in these new sensations, his back turned to the city in which he had arrived only that day, and where he was to live for many a year. Behind him a motley crowd was strolling along the boulevard; he caught snatches of Russian and foreign conversation, the quiet dignified voices of the local worthies, the pretty babble of the young ladies, and the boisterous voices of the senior schoolboys clustering around two or three of them. A burst of laughter from one such group made Vasily Petrovich turn round. The gay crowd passed him; one of the youths was saying something to a young schoolgirl; his chums were noisily interrupting what was apparently a vehement apologetic speech.

"Don't you believe him, Nina! He's a liar! He's making it all up!"

"No, really, Nina, it isn't my fault in the least!"

"Look here, Shevyrev, if you ever try to deceive me again..." the girl began with affected hauteur in a pretty young voice.

Vasily Petrovich did not catch the rest of the sentence, as the crowd passed out of earshot. Half a minute later another burst of laughter came out of the darkness.

"There is my future field of activity upon which I shall toil like the humble ploughman," thought Vasily Petrovich, first, because he had been appointed to the post of teacher in the local Gymnasium, and secondly, because he had a predilection for figurative thinking even when he did not give it utterance. "Yes, I shall have to labour in that humble field," he thought, sitting down on the bench, again facing the sea. "Where are thy dreams of a professorship, of journalism, of renown? They were beyond your reach, sir; so now try your hand here!"

And pleasurable thoughts stirred in the head of the new Gymnasium teacher. He thought of how he would discover the "divine spark" in boys from the very first classes at school; of how he would foster those natures "who strove to throw off the yoke of darkness"; of how, under his guidance, the fresh young forces, "free from the dross of this workaday world," would develop; and of how his pupils, in the end, might turn out to be remarkable men...

In imagination he even pictured such scenes: he sits, does Vasily Petrovich-now an old grey-headed teacher-in his humble lodgings, and his former pupils come to see him; one of them is a professor of such-and-such a university, "well known both at home and abroad," another is a writer, a famous novelist, a third is a public figure, also a prominent man. And all of them treat him with respect. "It was the good seeds you dropped into my soul when I Was a boy that have made me what I am, my dear Vasily Petrovich," says the public figure, wringing the hand of his old teacher with deep emotion.

counting his money, began figuring how much he would have left after meeting all the necessary expenses. "What a pity I spent money so recklessly on the way," he thought. "Lodgings... well, let us say twenty rubles a month, with meals, laundry, tea, tobacco. At any rate I will be able to save a thousand rubles in six months. Probably one can get lessons at a good price, something round about four or five rubles." He felt well pleased, and was moved to put his hand in his pocket, where lay two letters of introduction to two local bigwigs, and read the addresses on them for the twentieth time. He drew the letters out, and carefully unwrapped the paper they were folded up in, but he could not read the addresses as the light of the moon was not strong enough to afford Vasily Petrovich that pleasure. A photograph was wrapped up with the letters. Vasily Petrovich held it up towards the moon and tried to make out the familiar features. "Ah, dear Liza!" he breathed the name, and sighed with a not unpleasant feeling. Liza was his fiancee, who had remained in St. Petersburg to wait until Vasily Petrovich had saved up the thousand rubles which the young couple considered necessary to start a home with. With a sigh, he put the photograph and the letters away in his breast-pocket and fell to dreaming about his future married life. These dreams seemed to him more pleasant even than those about the public figure who was to come and thank him for the goodly seeds which he had planted in his soul.

The sea roared far below and the wind freshened. The Englishman had come out of the luminous lane of moonlight which rippled with thousands of glinting wavelets that grew brighter and brighter as it ran out into the watery waste. Vasily Petrovich was loath to get up from the bench, to tear himself away from this scene and go back to the tiny room in the hotel at which he had put up. But it was already late; he got up and walked down the boulevard. A gentleman in a light suit of raw silk fabric and a straw hat the crown of which was draped in muslinet (the summer costume of the local dandies) got up from a bench as Vasily Petrovich passed and said to him, "Have you a light, please?"

"Certainly," answered Vasily Petrovich. A red glow lit up a face that was familiar to him. "Nikolai! You, my friend?" "Vasily Petrovich?" "The very same. Oh, I'm so glad! This is a surprise!" said Vasily Petrovich, embracing his friend and kissing him thrice. "What good wind brings you here?"

"I'm working here, that's all. And you?"

"I have been appointed here as a teacher at the Gymnasium. I have just arrived."

"Where are you staying? If at a hotel, then please come down to my place. I'm very glad to see you. You have no friends here, have you? Come along, we'll dine and have a chat and remember the good old days."

"Very well, let us go," Vasily Petrovich agreed. "I am ever so glad! I came out here as if to a desert-and all of a sudden this delightful meeting. Cabman!" he shouted.

"Never mind that, you needn't shout. Sergei, come along there!" Vasily Petrovich's friend said in a loud calm voice.

A smart barouche rolled up to the curb, and its master jumped into it. Vasily Petrovich stood on the pavement and stared at the carriage, the black sleek horses and the fat coachman.

"Are these horses yours, Kudryashov?"

"Yes! Didn't expect it, eh?"  "Amazing. . . . Is this you?"

"Who else can it be? Come on, get in, we'll have plenty of time to talk."

Vasily Petrovich got into the barouche beside Kudryashov, and the vehicle rolled off, rocking and rattling over the cobbles. Vasily Petrovich leaned back in the soft upholstered seat, swaying and smiling. "Well I never!" he thought. "Not so long ago Kudryashov was the poorest of poor students, and now-a carriage!" Kudryashov, his outstretched feet resting on the front seat, smoked a cigar in silence. After a drive of five minutes the carriage came to a stop.

"Well, old chap, here we are. I'll show you my humble hut," said Kudryashov, stepping off and helping his friend to alight.

Before entering the humble hut the visitor passed his eye over it. The moon was behind it and did not light it up; therefore, all he noticed was that the house was a single-storey stone-built one with ten or twelve large windows. A penthouse supported by columns with gilded scrolls hung over a massive oak door with plate-glass panels, a bronze handle in the shape of a bird's claw holding a polyhedron, and a gleaming brass plate with the name of the owner on it.

"I like your hut, Kudryashov! It's more like a palazzo, I should say," Vasily Petrovich remarked when they came into the hall with its oak furniture and the black gaping mouth of the fire-place. "Is it your own?"

"No, old chap, it hasn't come to that yet. I rent it. It isn't expensive-fifteen hundred."

"Fifteen hundred!" Vasily Petrovich echoed. "It's more profitable to pay fifteen hundred than to lay out capital which can yield you much greater interest if it is not converted into property. Besides, you would need a lot of money. If you're going to build, then build something worth while, not a rubbishy thing like this."

"A rubbishy thing!" Vasily Petrovich exclaimed in astonishment.

"Why yes, the house is no good. But come along, hurry up."

ceilings and parqueted floors, and expensive paper hangings embossed in gold; a dining-room done in imitation oak with poor models of wild fowl hung about the walls, with an immense carved wood sideboard and a large round table which received a flood of light from a hanging bronze lamp with an opaque shade; a reception-room with a grand piano and a medley of bentwood furniture, such as settees, benches, stools and chairs, and with expensive lithographs and cheap oleographs in ornate gilt frames; a drawing-room with the usual collection of furniture upholstered in silk and a mass of gewgaws. It seemed as if the occupant had suddenly come into a large fortune, won two hundred thousand, say, and had decided to cut a dash by hastily fitting up for himself a sumptuous flat. It seemed as if everything here had been purchased in a lump, not because there had been any need to do so, but because the owner was flush of money, which had found an outlet in the purchase of a grand piano on which, as far as Vasily Petrovich knew, his friend could only play with one finger; of a bad old picture, one of tens of thousands ascribed to a second-rate Flemish painter, which no one probably ever looked at; of a set of chess figures of Chinese workmanship, which could not be used because they were so delicate and fragile, but the heads of which had three tiny balls carved out in them, one within another-and a multitude of other unnecessary things.

The friends went into the study. Here it was cosier. A large desk, encumbered with a variety of bronze and china knicknacks and littered with papers and drawing accesseries, occupied the middle of the room. On the walls hung huge coloured drawings and charts, and under them stood two low ottomans with silk cushions. Kudryashov put his arm round Vasily Petrovich, led him straight up to the couch and made him sit down on the soft cushions.

"Well, I am glad, very glad to have met an old chum," he said.

"So am I. You know, I came here as if to a desert, and all of a sudden-this meeting! Do you know, Kudryashov, the sight of you has stirred so many memories, touched so many chords. . . . "

"What memories?"

"And you ask? Why, memories of our student days, those blessed days when we lived so well-spiritually if not materially. D'you remember-"

"Remember what? How we used to eat dog's sausage? I've had enough of that, old chap. Care for a cigar? Regalia Imperialia, or whatever it's called; I only know they cost half a ruble a piece."

Vasily Petrovich took the proffered treasure out of a box, drew a penknife from his pocket, cut off the tip of the cigar, lit up, and said:

"I'm absolutely in a dream, Kudryashov. Such a post in a matter of a few years."

"Post nothing! It isn't worth a tinker's damn, old chap." "What do you mean? How much are you getting?" "What? Pay?" "Well yes, salary."

"My salary-that of Engineer Kudryashov, civil servant grade two-amounts to one thousand six hundred a year." Vasily Petrovich's face fell.

"But how is that? Then where does all this come from?" "Ah, what simplicity! Where does this come from? From water and earth, from sea and land. But mainly from here," his friend answered, tapping his head. "Do you see those pictures on the walls?" "Yes," said Vasily Petrovich. "Well?" "D'you know what they are?" "No."

Vasily Petrovich got up from the ottoman and went over to the wall. The blue, red, brown and black shading conveyed nothing to his mind, nor did the mysterious figures beside the dotted lines done in red ink. "What are they? Technical drawings?" "Yes, but drawings of what?" "I really don't know."

"Those drawings, my dear Vasily Petrovich, represent a future mole. Do you know what a mole is?"

"Yes, of course. After all I'm a teacher of Russian. A mole is a... a kind of... well, a breakwater, I should say."

"A breakwater is right. A breakwater serving to form a harbour. Those drawings represent a mole which is now under construction. You saw the sea from above, didn't you?"

"Why, yes! A wonderful scene! But I didn't notice any structures."

"I should "be surprised if you did," Kudryashov said, with a laugh. "That mole is almost right out of the sea, Vasily Petrovich-it exists here, on dry land."

"Where is that?"

"Here with me and other builders-with Knoblokh, Puitsikovsky and the rest of them. This is between ourselves, naturally; I am telling you because you're an old chum. What are you staring at me like that for? It's quite a usual thing."

"But, look here, this is really shocking! Do you mean to say it's true? Do you mean to say you have no scruples about using dishonest means to attain this comfort? Do you mean to say all the past was merely a stepping-stone to... to this. . . . And you can calmly talk about it?"

"Hold on, Vasily Petrovich! No harsh words, please. You say 'dishonest means'? Will you first be good enough to tell me the meaning of honest and dishonest. I don't seem to remember it; perhaps I have forgotten, but I rather think I never remembered; what's more, it seems to me that you don't remember either, and are just acting a part. Drop it, anyway; for one thing it isn't polite. You ought to respect freedom of opinion. You say it's dishonest; you can say what you like, but don't scold. I'm not abusing you for not being of my opinion, am I? It's purely a matter of point of view, old chap, and there are so many of those points that they're really not worth bothering our-heads about. Let's go into the dining-room to drink vodka and talk of pleasant things."

"Ah, Nikolai, Nikolai, it grieves me to look at you."

"No harm in that; you can grieve as much as you

No matter if it hurts, you'll get over it! You'll get used to it in time. You'll say, 'But what a ninny I was. ' You will, take my word for it. Come on, let's have a drink and forget about erring engineers. What's a man been given brains for if not to err, old chap? Now how much will you get, my dear teacher, eh?"

"What is that to you?"

"No, tell me."

"Well, with private lessons, I'll earn about three thousand."

"There, you see: for a wretched three thousand you'll trudge about after private lessons all your life! But I just sit and look around: if I feel like doing anything I do it, if I don't, I don't; if I should take it into my head to do nothing all day but twiddle my thumbs, I twiddle them. As for money-I have so much of it that it is to me a 'trifle light as air. ' "

In the dining-room, which they entered, the table had been laid for supper. Cold roast beef lay piled up in a pink heap. Tinned foods with varicoloured English inscriptions and gaudy pictures made a colourful display. An array of bottles stood on the table. The friends drank a glass of vodka and addressed themselves to the food. Kudryashov ate with slow relish, completely absorbed in what he was doing.

Vasily Petrovich ate and thought, thought and ate. He was greatly put out and utterly at a loss. According to the beliefs which he held, he should have beaten a hasty retreat from the house of his old friend never to return to it. "This piece I am now eating has been stolen," he thought, as he put a piece into his mouth and took a sip at the glass of wine which his amiable host had replenished. "And what am I doing if not acting meanly?" Many such definitions stirred in the poor teacher's mind, but definitions they remained, and behind each definition lurked a secret voice, as it were, which expostulated: "Well, what of it?"

Vasily Petrovich felt inadequate to deal with the problem, and continued to sit there. "Very well, I shall observe things," the thought crossed his mind by way of self-justification, but the very next minute he felt ashamed of himself. "Why should I observe things, I am not a writer, am I?"

"Jolly good meat, that-have you noticed?" said Kudryashov. "Won't get meat like that if you searched the town."

and how he had managed to get some himself.

"You've come just at the right moment," he said, concluding his story about the meat. "Have you ever had anything like it?"

"It is excellent roast beef," answered Vasily Petrovich.

"Superexcellent, old chap! I like everything to be just so. But why aren't you drinking? Wait a minute, try some of this wine."

the wine, Kudryashov drank it, and the more he drank the livelier he grew. A flush mounted the cheeks of his apathetic face, and his speech quickened and became more animated.

"But why are you silent?" he broke off at last to ask Vasily Petrovich, who had indeed maintained a stony silence throughout the epic narratives about the meat, the wine, the cheese and the other good things that adorned the engineer's table in such abundance.

"I don't know, old chap, I just don't feel like talking."

"Don't feel like talking. . . . What nonsense! You are still fretting over my confession, I see. I'm sorry that I ever told you, very sorry; we'd have had a most pleasant supper but for that confounded mole. Just don't think about it, Vasily Petrovich, forget it. . . . Eh? Come on, Vasya! It can't be helped, old chap, I haven't come up to scratch, I know. Life isn't school. I am not so sure that you'll stick to your path for very long either."

"Please don't make surmises about me," said Vasily Petrovich.

"Offended? Of course you won't stick to it. What good has your unselfishness done you? Are you easy in your mind? Don't you worry every day as to whether your conduct squares with your ideals, and isn't it brought home to you every day that it does not? Now isn't that true? Have some wine, it's good stuff."

He filled his own glass, too, held it up to the light, tasted it, smacked his lips and drained it.

"You think I don't know what's passing in your mind right now, my dear fellow? I know perfectly well. You're thinking, now what the dickens am I sitting with this man for? As if I can't do without his wine and cigars! Wait a minute, let me finish! I don't for a moment think that you are sitting here with me because of the wine and cigars. Not at all; you wouldn't go dinner-hunting even though you were keen on them. Dinner-hunting is a nasty thing. You're sitting here and talking to me simply because you can't make up your mind whether I'm a criminal or not. I don't shock you, that's what it is. Of course, you must feel it badly, because you have all your convictions pigeonholed in your mind, and according to that classification I, your old chum and friend, turn out to be a bad egg, but on the other hand, you can't find it in your heart to hate me. Convictions are all right as far as they go, but you can't get away from the fact that I am a chum, a sport, you might even say a good soul. You know perfectly well that I am incapable of doing anyone harm."

"But wait a minute, Kudryashov. Where does all this come from?" Vasily Petrovich said with a sweeping gesture. "You said yourself it wasn't yours. Then the one whom it has been stolen from has been wronged."

"It is easy to say-whom it has been stolen from. I've been thinking and thinking whom I could have wronged, but I have not been able to make it out yet. You don't understand how these things are done; I'll tell you, and then perhaps you'll agree with me that it isn't so easy to find the wronged victim."

Kudryashov rang a bell. An impassive liveried figure in black made its appearance.

"Fetch the drawing from my study, Ivan-the one hanging between the windows. You'll see what a tremendous job it is, Vasily Petrovich. As a matter of fact, I have begun to find poesy in it lately."

Ivan carefully brought in a huge sheet of drawing paper pasted on calico. Kudryashov took it, pushed aside the plates, bottles and glasses, and spread the drawing on the wine-stained table-cloth.

"Look here," he said. "This is a cross-section of our mole, and that is its longitudinal section. D'you see that blue shade? That's the sea. Its depth here is so great that you can't start building up the masonry from the sea floor; what we have to do first is to prepare a bed for the mole."

"A bed?" said Vasily Petrovich. "What a strange name."

"A bed of stone, made up of huge cobbles no less than a cubic foot in dimension." Kudryashov unscrewed a tiny pair of silver compasses from his watch key and measured off a short line with them on the drawing. "Look, Vasily Petrovich, that's a sagene. (Sagene--old Russian measure equal to 7 feet.)

a narrow bed, would you?

masonry involved. You know, barge after barge keeps coming up to the breakwater the whole day long, dumping its load overboard, but when you measure it the build-up is infinitesimal. It's like throwing stones into an abyss. Here in the plan you see the bed a dingy grey. While it is being run out, other work has been started on it ashore. Enormous artificial stones, solid blocks of stone and cement, are lowered on to the bed by means of steam cranes. Every such block is the size of a cubic sagene and weighs hundreds of poods. They are raised by steam, turned about and laid down in rows. Making this mass move up or down at your own will by a mere light pressure of your hand gives you an odd sensation. When a mass like that obeys your will, you feel how mighty man is. . . . Here are those blocks, see." He indicated them with his compasses. "This masonry is built up to just a little below the surface of the sea, and after that the top dressing of squared stone is started on. It's a big job, you see-quite as big as any of the Egyptian pyramids. There you have a general idea of the work which has been dragging on for several years already, and will drag on for God knows how many more. The longer the better. Anyway, if it goes on the way it has been doing lately it will last our time very likely."

"Well, what then?" Vasily Petrovich asked after a long silence.

"Nothing. We shall sit where we are and receive what is coming to us."

"I still don't see what the receiving possibilities are."

"You're too young, that's your trouble. Come to think of it, though, we are of the same age, but the experience that you lack has made me old and wise. The thing is this: every sea, as you know, has its storms. Well, it's these storms that do it. They wash away the bed every year and we have to build a new one."

"I still don't see any possibility of--"

"We build it," Kudryashov coolly proceeded, "on paper, on this drawing here, because it is only on paper that it is washed away."

Vasily Petrovich looked blank.

"Because you can't really expect waves that are only eight feet high to wash away a masonry bed. This sea is, not an ocean, and even there breakwaters like ours stand the stress of weather; what's more, here with us, at a depth of about fifteen feet, where the bed ends, you have almost a dead calm. This is how things are done, Vasily Petrovich, just listen. In the spring, after the autumn and winter storms, we get together and decide the question of how much bed has been washed away that year. We take the drawings and mark them off. And then we write to the proper authorities-so many cubic sagenes of masonry washed away by the storms. They write back: go on building, and mending, damn you! And we do."

"But what do you mend?"

"Our pockets, of course," said Kudryashov, laughing at his own witticism.

"That's impossible, impossible!" cried Vasily Petrovich, jumping from his chair and running up and down the room. "Look here, Kudryashov, you are ruining yourself. I say nothing of the immorality of it. . . . I mean that you will all be caught in the end, you'll be ruined, they'll deport you to Siberia. My God, to think of all those hopes and dreams! An honest capable youth-and suddenly. . . ."

Vasily Petrovich went off into an ecstasy, and spoke long and fervently. But Kudryashov smoked his cigar with unruffled calm, and glanced from time to time at his overwrought friend.

"Yes, you'll be deported to Siberia!" Vasily Petrovich ended his philippic.

"It's a are a funny chap-you don't understand a thing. Am I the only one who is-how can I express it more delicately-who is benefiting? Everyone around you, the very air you breathe seems to be grabbing. Only recently a novice came along and started a correspondence here on the honesty line. And what happened? We quashed him. And we'll always quash them. All for one and one for all. You think a man's his own enemy? Who will dare touch me when he knows it may be his own undoing?"

"Consequently, as Krylov has it, all the snouts have fluff on them?"

"Fluff is right. Everyone takes what he can from life, there's no platonic love about it. Now what were we talking about? Ah, yes, the people I have wronged. Tell me whom? The underdogs? Well, in what way? It's not as if I'm drawing directly from the source, I'm taking what has already been drawn, and if I don't get it someone else will-someone perhaps worse than I. At least I don't live like a pig, and even have certain spiritual interests: I subscribe to a mass of newspapers and journals. People shout about science, and civilization, but what application would your civilization have if it were not for us men of means? And who would enable science to advance if not men of means? But you've got to get those means somewhere. Those so-called honest ways--"

"Oh, don't finish it, Kudryashov, don't say the last word for goodness' sake!"

"Word? Would you rather I told lies or made excuses, you old hypocrite? We're stealing, do you hear? And if we're going to speak the truth, then you are stealing, too."

"I say, Kudryashov-"

"What can you say," Kudryashov interrupted with a laugh. "You're a robber, old chap, that's what you are. A robber in the garb of virtue. Just what is this occupation of yours-teaching? Will you be earning even that miserable salary which you are now receiving? Will you give the world a single decent person? Three-quarters of your pupils will come out men like me, and the remaining quarter men like you, that is well-meaning softies. Now tell me, frankly, aren't you just taking money for nothing? And is there such a great difference between us? You fly your kites high, don't you, preaching honesty!"

"Kudryashov! Believe me, this conversation is very painful to me."

"To me it isn't."

"I did not expect to find in you what I have found."

"It's not surprising; people change, and I have changed, too, but in what direction, you could hardly be expected to guess; you're not a prophet."

"You don't have to be a prophet to hope that an honest youth will become an honest citizen."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, don't say that word to me. An honest citizen! What textbook or archives did you drag that musty old relic out of? It's about time you stopped being sentimental-you're not a boy, you know. I tell you what, Vasya," Kudryashov said, taking his friend's arm, "let's drop this confounded subject, there's a good chap. Let's have a drink for comradeship. Ivan! Another bottle of this stuff."

"Well, here's to the prosperity of... of what shall we say? Oh, it's all the same-here's to our prosperity-yours and mine."

"I drink," Vasily Petrovich said with feeling, "to you coming to your senses. It's the greatest desire I have."

"Don't mention it, there's a good chap. If I come to my senses I won't be able to drink any more-I'll starve. See what logic yours is. Let's just drink without any wishing, and let's drop this dreary rigmarole; all the same we'll never agree: you won't set me right, and I won't out-argue you. It's not worth arguing about, anyway; you'll come round to my philosophy yourself one day."

"Never!" Vasily Petrovich exclaimed vehemently, banging his glass down on the table.

"Well, we'll see. But here am I talking about myself all the time, and you haven't said a word about yourself! What have you been doing, what are your plans?"

"I told you already, I've been appointed teacher here."

"Is this your first situation?"

"Yes. Up till now I had private lessons."

"Do you still intend to carry on with them?"

"If I can get them, why not."

"We'll get them for you, old chap!" Kudryashov said, slapping Vasily Petrovich on the back. "We'll give you the tutelage of all the local youth. How much did you charge per hour in St. Petersburg?"

"Not much. It was very hard to get good lessons there. A ruble or two, not more."

"Fancy a man working himself to death over such a piddling sum! Don't you dare ask less than five here. It's hard work; I remember running about coaching when I was in my first and second year. I'd hunt out a lesson at fifty kopeks an hour, and be glad to get it. It's the most thankless and difficult task. I'll introduce you to all our crowd; there are some very nice families here, some of therewith girls. If you behave sensibly, I'll arrange a match for you if you like. What do you say, Vasily Petrovich?"

"Thanks, I don't need your services."

"What, are you engaged already? Really?" Vasily Petrovich looked embarrassed. "I can read it in your eyes. Well, my congratulations, old chap. You've lost no time, have you! Well, well! Ivan!" Kudryashov shouted.

"Let's have some champagne!"

"There isn't any, it's all gone," the servant answered sullenly.

"It's enough, Kudryashov, really!"

"Shut up; I'm not asking you. Are you trying to insult me, or what? Look here, Ivan, don't you come back without champagne, d'you hear! Off you go!"

"But the shop's closed, Nikolai Konstantinovich."

"Don't argue. You have money-go and fetch it."

The servant went away, muttering under his breath.

"Cheeky devil, stands there arguing! And you're a fine one too-'it's enough, Kudryashov. ' If this isn't an occasion for champagne, then what is champagne for! Well, who is she?"

"Who?"

"Well, the girl, your fiancee. Is she poor, rich, good-looking?"

"You don't know her all the same, her name will tell you nothing. She has no fortune, and as for beauty-that's a relative thing. I think she's beautiful."

"Have you got a photograph of her?" Kudryashov asked. "I bet you wear it next to your heart. Show me!" He held his hand out.

Vasily Petrovich's face, flushed with wine, grew still redder. Hardly knowing why, he unbuttoned his frock-coat, drew out his wallet, and got out the precious photograph. Kudryashov seized it and began to examine it.

"Not bad, old chap! You know what's what."

"I'd ask you please not to use such expressions!" Vasily Petrovich said sharply. "Let me have it back."

"Wait a minute, let me feast my eyes. Well, I wish you joy. There, there, take it, put it back against your heart. Oh, you are a funny man!" Kudryashov cried and burst out laughing.

"I don't see what there is to laugh at!"

"I just thought it funny, old chap. I imagined you ten years hence; yourself in a dressing-gown, a pregnant wife who has lost her good looks, seven children and very little money with which to buy them boots, knickers, caps and all the rest of it. The prose of life. I wonder whether you'll carry that photograph about in your breast pocket then? Ha, ha, ha!"

"What sort of poetry lies in store for you, I'd like to know? To receive money and run through it? To eat, drink and sleep?"

"Not to eat, drink, and sleep, but to live. To live with the knowledge of your freedom and to some extent even power." \

"Power! What power have you?"

"There is power in money, and I have the money. I do what I please. If I fancy buying you, I'll buy you."

"Kudryashov!"

"Don't put on airs. Can't two old friends like you and I have a joke at each other's expense? I won't buy you, of course. Live your own way. Still, I do what I please. Oh, what a fool, what a fool I am!" Kudryashov suddenly exclaimed, slapping his forehead. "We've been sitting here all this time and I haven't shown you the chief sight. You say-eat, drink and sleep? I'll show you something that will make you eat your words. Come along. Take a candle."

"Where are we going?" asked Vasily Petrovich.

"Follow me. You'll see where."

However, he got his rebellious limbs somewhat under control and followed Kudryashov. They passed through several rooms, and down a narrow passage, and came to a damp dark room. Their footsteps rang hollowly on the stone floor. The sound of falling water murmured like a ceaseless chord. Stalactites of tuff and bluish glass hung from the ceiling; artificial rocks towered here and there, covered with a mass of tropical vegetation, amid which there was an occasional gleam as of a dark mirror.

"What is this?" asked Vasily Petrovich.

"An aquarium, to which I have devoted two years of my time and a lot of money. Wait a minute, I'll light it up."

Kudryashov disappeared behind some tropical plant, and Vasily Petrovich went up to one of the mirrors, which proved to be a plate-glass window, and looked through it. The light of the candle was too feeble to penetrate deep into the water, but the fishes, large and small, attracted by the spot of light, collected round the illumined place and stared dully at Vasily Petrovich with round eyes, opening and closing their mouths and stirring their fins and gills. Farther loomed the dark outlines of water plants, with some loathsome creature wriggling about among them; Vasily Petrovich could not make out its shape.

light passed through the mass of bluish water, which swarmed with fishes and other living creatures, and was filled with plants, whose blood-red, brown and dingy green silhouettes stood out sharply against the dim background. The rocks and tropical plants, looking still darker by contrast, made a pretty border around the thick plate-glass windows through which a view of the interior was disclosed. Everything within the aquarium came to darting life, startled by the dazzling light: a shoal of big-headed little chubs rushed hither and thither, turning as if at a command; sterlets wriggled about with their snouts pressed against the glass, then rose to the surface and sank to the bottom, as though trying to escape through the transparent solid barrier; a smooth black eel buried itself in the sand of the aquarium, raising a cloud of muddy sediment; a comical dock-tailed cuttlefish disengaged itself from the rock to which it had been clinging and swam across the aquarium in jerks, its long tentacles trailing behind it. Altogether it was so beautiful and novel that Vasily Petrovich stood lost in admiration.

"How do you like it?" Kudryashov said, reappearing at his side.

"Wonderful, old chap, remarkable! How on earth did you arrange it all! Such taste, such striking effect!"

"Don't forget to add knowledge. I went specially to Berlin to see the local wonder-aquarium, and without boasting I can say that although mine of course is inferior in size, it does not yield to it in the least in beauty and interest. It's my pride and comfort. When I feel bored I come here, sit down and look at it for hours. I love all these creatures for being frank-not like us humans. They devour each other and have no qualms about it. Look, do you see that fellow running down his prey?"

A little fish was darting about frantically, fleeing before some long-bodied voracious enemy. In mortal terror it tried to fling itself out of the water and hide under the jutting rocks, but everywhere the sharp teeth pursued it. The rapacious enemy was about to seize it when another came darting in from the side and snapped up the prey: the little fish disappeared in its jaws. The pursuer stopped bewildered, while the thief vanished in a dark corner.

"Grabbed it from under his nose!" said Kudryashov. "The fool, he's lost it! You'd be surprised how much of this small fry they devour: today you let in a mass of them, and the next day they're all eaten up. They eat them up and don't give a thought about whether it's moral or immoral, but we? I've only recently grown out of that stupid habit, Vasily Petrovich. Don't you agree with me yet that it is stupid?"

"What is?" said Vasily Petrovich, still staring at the water.

"The pricks of conscience, I mean. What's the use? When a tasty morsel comes your way you just grab it, conscience or no. I have done away with them, those pricks of conscience, and try to take after these beasts."

And he pointed to the aquarium.

"You are free to do as you please," Vasily Petrovich said with a sigh. "Those are sea plants and sea animals, I believe?"

"Yes. The water comes from the sea, too. I have had it specially laid on."

"Have you really? It must cost an enormous lot of money."

"It's none too cheap. My aquarium costs me nearly thirty thousand."

"Thirty thousand!" Vasily Petrovich exclaimed, aghast. "With a salary of only a thousand six hundred!"

"Oh, drop that horrification! If you've seen enough of this, let's go. Ivan must have brought what I asked him. Just a moment, I'll switch off the current."

1879