When we talked about the fact that in order to perfect the individual, it is necessary first of all to change the conditions of people's lives, then Ivan Vasilnavich, who is honored by everyone, said this. Vasilnavich spoke in this way. In fact, no one has ever said that it is impossible for a person to know what is good and what is bad, but Ivan Vasilievich had a habit of saying that he could not know what was good and what was bad. However, Ivan Vasilievich had a habit of explaining his own ideas that arose during the conversation, and then, in order to substantiate them, he told episodes from his life. Often he forgot all about the reasons that prompted him to speak, and went on and on with all his attention, and with great sincerity and truthfulness.
And now he does the same.
"Take myself. My entire life became this instead of that, not due to circumstances, but due to something else entirely."
"Due to what, exactly?" We asked.
"That's a long story. It will take a long story for you to understand."
"Just tell us about it."
Ivan. Vasilnavich pondered for a moment and shook his head.
"Yes," he said, "my whole life changed overnight, or rather, in one morning."
"What the hell is going on?"
"Here's what happened: at the time I was passionately in love. I've been in love many times, but this was the most passionate love of all. It's long past; several of her daughters are married. Her name is B--, yes, Valenka B--" Ivan Vassilyevich gave her name. Ivan Vassilyevich gave her surname, "and she is still a wonderful beauty at fifty. In her youth, at eighteen, she was simply mesmerizing: slender, slim, elegant, dignified - exactly dignified. She always held her body straight, as if she had to, and at the same time tilted her head slightly, which with her pretty features and slender figure - though she was not plump, one might even say thin - gave her a commanding presence and people would not have dared to approach her if there had not been such a gracious, ever-pleasant smile around her mouth, in her charmingly bright eyes, and all over her lovely young body."
"Ivan B. How well Vasilnavitch renders it!"
"But no amount of rendering can render her in such a way that you can understand what kind of woman she is. But that's not the problem. What I want to talk about came out in the forties. I was a student at an out-of-state university at the time. I don't know whether this was a good thing or a bad thing: at that time we didn't have any groups in the university1 and we didn't talk about any theories; we were just young and lived our lives in the way that is characteristic of youth: apart from studying, we had fun. I was a very pleasant and lively young man, and my family was well-to-do. I had a powerful horse, I used to go skiing in the mountains with the ladies (ice-skating was not yet popular), I drank with my classmates (at that time we drank only champagne, but nothing if we had no money, unlike nowadays, when we drink vodka instead). But my main pleasure was going to parties and dances. I was a good dancer and not too ugly in person."
"Come now, don't be too modest," interjected a conversational lady, "haven't we seen an old-fashioned silver-plate photograph of you? You're not only not ugly, you're a beautiful man."
"A beautiful man is a beautiful man, and that's not the problem anyway. The problem is that, just as I was falling madly in love with her, I attended a ball on the last day of the Feast of the Thanksgiving of the Meat at the house of the chief nobleman of the province, a loyal elder and a magnificently hospitable squire. I was received by his wife, who was as faithful as he was, and wore a dark brown velvet frock and a diamond tiara.1 She bared her aged but plump shoulders and breasts, like the portrait of Elizabeth Petrovna. She bared her aged but plump shoulders and breasts, as depicted in the portrait of Elizabeth Petrovna. It was a wonderful ball: a magnificent ballroom with an orchestra room, famous serf musicians of the time from the music-loving landowner's house, a delicious meal, and an endless supply of champagne. I did not drink the champagne, though I liked it too, for I was drunk and intoxicated with love without drinking, but I danced to the point of exhaustion,-cadrille, waltz, polka, and, naturally, as much as I could with Valenka. She wore a long white dress with a pink sash, a pair of white sheepskin gloves nearly flush to her slim, pointed elbows, and white, clean satin shoes on her feet. When the mazurka began, someone stole my chance: as soon as she entered the stage, the obnoxious engineer Anisimov - whom I still can't forgive - invited her, and I was late because I had gone to the barber's store to buy gloves.3 I had to go to the barber's store to buy gloves. So my partner for the mazurka was not Valenka, but a German lady, to whom I had been slightly attentive in the past. But I am afraid I was very rude to her this evening, and neither spoke to her nor looked at her; I saw only the slender figure in the white dress with the pink sash, and only her radiant, rosy, dimpled face and kind, lovely eyes. Not only me, but everyone looked at her and admired her, men admired her, women admired her, and it was obvious that she overshadowed them all. It was impossible not to admire her.
"As a rule I should have said that I was not her partner for the mazurka dance, whereas in fact I had been dancing with her almost the whole time. She walked graciously across the entire ballroom, straight towards me, and I stood up without waiting for an invitation, which she rewarded with a small smile. When we were led to her and she did not guess my code name,2 she had to give her hand to someone else, shrug her slender shoulders, and smile at me in pity and consolation. When everyone changed tricks and inserted waltzes in the mazurka, I waltzed with her for a long time, and she said to me with a smile, despite her shortness of breath, 'Do it again.' ③ So I waltzed again and again and again, not even feeling like I had a sinking body."
"Huh, how come you can't feel it? I think you can clearly feel not only your own flesh, but also her miles, when you put your arm around her waist," said one of the male guests.
Ivan Vasilievich suddenly turned red. Vasilnavich suddenly turned red and almost shouted in anger:
"Yes, that's how you modern youth are. You have eyes only for flesh. It was different in our time. The stronger my love was, the less attention I paid to her flesh. You see only legs, ankles, and whatnot now, and you hate to strip the woman you love naked, as far as I am concerned. It seems to me that the woman you love is naked, just as Alphonse Kahl1 was - he was a good man. As Alphonse Kahl1 - who was a good writer - said: "The object of my affection is always dressed in a copper-beaten dress. We don't strip her naked, but try to cover her naked body, like Noah's good son.2 Hey, you wouldn't understand ...... anyway."
"Don't listen to him. What happened then?" A man in our midst asked.
"Well. I just danced with her as much as I could, not paying attention to how the time passed. The musicians had long since tired themselves out, - as you know, it's always such a flip-flop of mazurkas near the end of a ball - and the old gentlemen and ladies had risen from their card tables in the parlor to wait for dinner, with the servants carrying their things and running back and forth more frequently. It was a little after two o'clock. The last few minutes must be utilized. Once more I selected her, and we danced along the ballroom for the hundredth time. "'Will you dance the cadenza with me after dinner?' I asked her as I led her back to her seat.
"'Sure, as long as the family doesn't take me away,' she said with a grin he said.
"'I won't let them take me away,' I said.
"'The fan can be returned to me,' she said.
"'Can't afford to give it back,' I said, at the same time handing her the white fan, which was of little value.
"'Then I'll give you this, so you don't have to part with it,' said she, pulling a small piece of feather from the fan and giving it to me.
"I took the feather, and could only express my full joy and gratitude with my eyes. I was not only pleasant and satisfied, I even felt happy and intoxicated, I was kind, I was not the same person I was, but a transcendent person who knew no evil and could only do good. I tucked the feather into my glove and stood frozen, never to leave her again.
"'Look, they're asking Papa to dance,' she said to me, pointing as she did so to her stout, dignified colonel father with his silver epaulettes, who was standing in the doorway with the hostess and the other too-big-to-fail men.
"'Valenka, come here,' we heard the ringing voice of our hostess, who wore a diamond tiara and bared Elizabethan shoulders.
"Valenka headed for the door and I followed her.
"'My dear1, persuade your father to dance with you. Hello, Peter... Vladislavich, please,' said the hostess, turning to the colonel.
"Valenka's father was a well-built old man, square, stout, and radiant. His face was rosy, with two snow-white, Nicholas I-style1 curled lips and moustache and an equally snow-white beard that joined them, and his hair was brushed forward at the temples; and there was a smile of affectionate pleasure in his bright eyes and on his lips, like that of his daughter. He had been born with an imposing countenance, with a broad chest held high in military style, and no more than a few medals on his breast, besides which he had a strong shoulder and two long, well-proportioned legs. He was a military chief of the hostile type in the style of Nicholas I.
"As we approached the door, the colonel excused himself, saying that he had long since lost his taste for dancing, but he smiled and put his hand to his left, took his sword from his sword belt and handed it to an attentive young man, and with his right hand he put on a deerskin glove, 'All in good order,' he said, smiling, and then took one of his daughter's hands. said, and then taking one of his daughter's hands in his, he turned slightly and waited for the beat.
"By the time the mazurka began, he stepped sensitively on one foot and held out the other, so that his stout, plump body spun along the ballroom one moment in a quiet, subdued manner, and the next with the sound of the soles of his boots treading the ground and his feet touching, snapping and snapping, violently. Valentina's graceful body danced to his right and left, and she shortened or lengthened the steps of her little white satin-shod feet in time, with a dexterity that was hard to perceive. The whole hall was watching every movement of the dancing pair. I not only admired them, but was y moved. I was particularly moved by his boots, which were fastened tightly with the ankle straps of his pants. They were a pair of fine calfskin boots, but not the fashionable pointy-toe boots, but the old-fashioned square-toe boots without a heel. The boots were clearly made by a bootmaker in the army. 'In order to bring his beloved daughter into society and dress her, he does not buy fashionable boots, but only wears homemade ones,' I thought; and so the square-toed boots struck me as extraordinarily moving. He had evidently had his dancing days, but now that his body was fat, there was not enough spring in his legs to make all the graceful and rapid steps he tried so hard to make. Still, he danced deftly twice. He quickly crossed his legs and rejoined them, though not quite as dexterously, and he was still able to kneel on one leg. She smiled and straightened her skirt, which was hanging off him, and danced around him with aplomb, at which point all the people applauded enthusiastically. He stood up a little strained, and hugged his daughter tenderly and affectionately on the back of the head, kissed her forehead, and then led her to me, whom he thought I was to dance with. I said, I'm not her dance partner.
"'Uh, all the same, you dance with her now,' he said, smiling affectionately as he slipped his saber into his sword belt.
"As soon as a drop of water is poured out of a bottle, the rest often follows in great streams, and in the same way, the love I felt in my heart for Valenka unleashed the full force of the love that lay within me. I embraced the world with my love. I also loved the mistress of the house, who wore a tiara and showed her Elizabethan breasts, as well as her husband, her guests, her servants, and even the engineer, Anisimov, who scowled at me. As for her father, together with his homemade leather boots and a gracious smile like hers, at that time I experienced even more a deep and tender affection.
"After the mazurka was over, the host couple invited their guests to dinner, but Colonel B. excused himself, saying that he had to get up from a dry spell tomorrow, and bade his hosts farewell. I was afraid to take her with me, but fortunately she stayed with her mother.
"After dinner I danced with her the Kadriel which she had promised beforehand, though I seemed to have been infinitely happier, and still my happiness increased. We didn't talk about love at all. I did not even ask her, or myself, whether she loved me. As long as I loved her, in me it was enough as far as I could go. I was only worried about one thing - about something destroying my happiness.
"By the time I got home, undressed, and tried to sleep, I could see that was never going to happen. I had in my hand a small piece of feather torn from her fan and one of her gloves, which she had given me when I had helped her mother and her into the car successively before she left. I look at these two things and I don't have to close my eyes to recall her clearly: or when she guessed my code name in order to pick one of the two male dance partners and said in a lovely voice 'Pride? Yes?' , and reached out to me cheerfully, or when she sipped her champagne, bit by bit, at the dinner table, frowning and looking at me with affectionate eyes; but mostly I recalled how she had danced with her father, and how she had twirled about him with ease, revealing a look of pride and joy for herself and for him, and glancing at the delightedly appreciative audience. I couldn't help but feel a soft and gentle affection for him and her alike.
"At the time I lived alone with my late brother. My brother had never been a fan of high society, did not attend balls, and at this time was preparing for his Bachelor's exams and led a very disciplined life. He was already asleep. I look at his face, which is buried inside the pillow. I looked at his head, which was buried inside the pillow and half covered by the facecloth quilt, and felt pity for him. I pity him because he doesn't know and can't share the happiness I experience. Petrusha, the serf who served us, came to fetch me with a candle, and he tried to help me take off my coat, but I dismissed it.1 The straps that are sewn to the cuffs of the pants are tied between the heel and the palm of the shoe. so that when a person sits down the leg of his pants hangs upward, exposing his socks. him. I found his sleepy visage and disheveled hair very moving. Trying desperately not to make a sound, I perched up on my toes and walked into my room and sat down on the edge of the bed. No, I was too happy to sleep. Adding to the stifling heat I felt in the fire-lit room, I stepped gingerly into the front room without taking off my uniform, put on my coat, opened the door to the outside, and walked out into the street.
"It was a little after four o'clock when I left the ball, and by the time I got home and sat down in the house, another two or so hours had passed, so that it was light when I went out. It was Thanksgiving Day weather, and there was fog, and the moisture-laden snow was melting on the roads, and all the roofs were dripping. At the time, B's family lived at the end of town, near a large vacant lot, with a place for people to roam at one end of the lot and the girls' high school at the other. I walked through our out-of-the-way alley to the street, and only then did I begin to run into pedestrians and sledges loaded with firewood, whose slippery logs touched the pavement1 . The horses bobbing their wet heads rhythmically under their smooth wooden yokes, the wagon drivers walking in bushels and fat leather boots, puffing along beside the wagons, the houses along the street looking taller in the fog,-all this struck me as particularly lovely and interesting.
"I went out into the open space near the Б House, and saw a great mass of blackness against one end of the swimming resting-place, and heard the sound of flutes and drums coming from that side. I had been full of joy, and sometimes the mazurka was still soaring in my ears. But here it was a different kind of music, a raw, hard music.
"'What's going on here?' I thought, and then walked along a slippery path in the middle of the clearing, trodden by carts and horses, in the direction of the sound. After a hundred paces or so, I began to make out a number of black figures there through the mist. Obviously a group of soldiers. 'Probably on drill,' I thought, and moved a little nearer forward with a blacksmith who was walking ahead of me in a short, grease-stained leather jacket and apron, with something in his hand. The soldiers, in their black uniforms, stood facing each other in two rows with their guns, not moving a muscle. Drummers and fife-players stood behind them, repeating over and over that unpleasant, harsh old tune.
"'What are they doing?' I asked the blacksmith who stood beside me.
"'Clip whipping1 for a boot tartar deserter,' said the blacksmith, looking at the far end of the line, and indignantly he said.
"I looked that way, too, and saw something terrible approaching me in the middle of the two rows of soldiers. Approaching me was a bare-chested man, his hands bound above the barrel of a gun, with which two sergeants held him. Beside him was a stout officer in an overcoat and cap, who seemed familiar to me. The tortured man was spasmodic, and his feet were stamping on the melting snow as he walked toward me, and the sticks were raining down on him from both sides, and he fell backward for a moment, so the two sergeants holding him by the rifle pushed him forward, and then he planted himself forward again, so the sergeants pulled him backward to keep him from planting himself. The stout officer took a firm, strutting step, always parallel to him. This was her rosy-cheeked father with his snow-white lips and mustache and beard.
"With each stroke the condemned man, as if taken aback, turned his face, wrinkled with pain, to the side from which it had fallen, showing a mouthful of snow-white teeth, and repeating two identical words. I did not hear these two words until he was very close to me. Instead of speaking, he whimpered, 'Brethren, have mercy. Brothers, have mercy.' But there was no mercy, and as the party came up to my immediate heels, I saw a soldier standing opposite me step resolutely forward, swing his club with a whirring motion, and strike the Tartar on the back with a sharp blow. The Tartar lunged forward, but the sergeant yanked him, and then the same club fell on him again from the other side, and again this way and that. The colonel walked alongside, looking at his feet one moment and at the tortured man the next; he drew in a breath, puffed out his cheeks, then puckered his lips and let it out slowly. The line passed by where I was standing. I swept a glance toward the back of the condemned man, sandwiched between the two lines of soldiers. It was a mottled, wet, purplish-red, oddly shaped thing, and I couldn't believe it was a human body.
"'My God,' said the blacksmith beside me.
"The line slowly moved away, the clubs still falling on the staggering, convulsing man's back from both sides, the drums and the flutes still sounding, and the stout, well-built colonel still walking with a firm walk beside the condemned man. Suddenly, the colonel stopped and walked quickly to a soldier.
"'I'll show you,' I heard him say in an exasperated voice, 'how dare you fool around? How dare you?'
"I saw him raise his strong, buckskin-gloved hand and give the short, panicked soldier, who had not much breath, a slap in the face, simply because the soldier had not made enough effort to bring down his club on the Tartar's purplish back.
"'A couple of fresh sticks!' He yelled as he looked back and finally saw me. He pretended not to recognize me, frowned horribly and viciously, and turned his face away in a hurry. Feeling that ashamed, and not knowing where to look, as if I had been exposed for a most shameful deed, I buried my eyes and hurried home. On the way the drums and the flutes rang in my ears, and now and then came the words, 'Brethren, have mercy,' and now and then I heard the Colonel's confident, exasperated roar: 'How dare you fool around? How dare you?' At the same time I felt an almost nauseous, almost physical agony, and several times I stopped short, feeling that I was about to vomit up all the horrors which the sight had aroused within me. I do not remember how I reached home and lay down. But I had just fallen asleep when I heard and saw that all over again, and I simply got up with a start.
"'He evidently knows something which I do not,' I thought of the Colonel, 'and if I knew that which he knows, I would understand what I saw, and would not be distressed.' But no matter how much I thought about it over and over again, I could not understand that which the Colonel knew, and I did not fall asleep until late in the evening, and only after I had gone up to the house of one of my friends and got drunk with him.
"Well, do you think I concluded then that what I saw was a bad thing? By no means. 'Since this was done with such great confidence, and everyone recognized it as necessary, then un, it is evident that they must know a thing that I do not.' I thought, and endeavored to inquire into this. But no matter how hard I tried, I could never find out. Not being able to probe it, I could not serve in the army as I had originally hoped to do, and not only did I not enter the army to offer my services, but I did not offer my services anywhere, and so just as you see, I became a loser."
"Come now, we know what a 'waste' you have become," said one of the men among us; "you might as well have said: how many people would have become waste without you. "
"Come on, that's total bullshit," said Ivan Vasilnovich, truly annoyed. Vasilnavich said, truly chagrined.
"Okay, so un, what about love?" We asked.
"Love? Love declined from this day. When she was meditating with a smile on her face as she usually did, I immediately remembered the Colonel in the square and always felt a bit awkward and unhappy, so I saw her less and less and as a result love disappeared. There are such things in the world, which make a change in one s whole life, and take it in a new direction. And you guys say ......," he concluded.