XXIV
A Word of Praise for Marya Alekséyevna
You have ceased to be a person of any importance in Viérotchka’s life, Marya Alekséyevna, and now that we are going to part from you, the author of this narrative begs you not to complain, that you are dismissed from the stage with an epilogue which is somewhat unfavorable to you. Do not think that we will treat you without due respect. You were fooled, but that does not in the least lessen our respect for your good sense, Marya Alekséyevna; your mistake does not testify against you. You were thrown in contact with people such as had never before crossed your path, and therefore it was no crime that you were mistaken in them when you judged them by your former experience. All your former life brought you to the conclusion that people were divided into two classes—fools and rascals: “Whoever is not a fool must be a rascal,” you used to think; “and he who is not a rascal can only be a fool.”
This view was very true, Marya Alekséyevna, until within a very short time, Marya Alekséyevna. You have met with people, Marya Alekséyevna, who spoke very glibly, and you saw that all these people, without a single exception, were either foxy, throwing dust in the eyes of others, or full-grown stupids, not knowing life and not having the wit to accommodate themselves to circumstances. And therefore, Marya Alekséyevna, you considered them as evincing stupidity and fair game for deceit, and you were right, Marya Alekséyevna. Your opinion of men was already entirely formed when you met the first woman who was neither stupid nor villainous; it was excusable that you got confused and did not know what to think of her or how to treat her. Your views of people were already entirely formed when you met the first noble-minded man, who was not a simple, pitiable child, who knew life as thoroughly as you did, whose judgments of it were not less correct than your own, who could transact business with no less skill than you; it was excusable that you were mistaken in him and looked upon him as a scoundrel like yourself. These mistakes, Marya Alekséyevna, do not lessen my regard for you as a clever and active woman. You brought your husband up from nothingness; you have gained for yourself a competency against your declining years—these are good things, and they were hard for you to accomplish. Your method was bad, but your environment gave you no other method. Your methods belong to your environment, and not to you personally, and hence it is not to your dishonor, but it is a credit to your intellect and strength of character.
Are you satisfied, Marya Alekséyevna, with this acknowledgment of your good qualities? Of course you must be satisfied with this, because you never thought of claiming to be lovely or gentle. In a moment of involuntary frankness, you yourself confessed that you were a bad and dishonorable woman, and you did not look upon your wickedness and dishonesty as disgraceful to you, because you proved that your environment would not allow you to be otherwise. Consequently, you will not care, because in addition to the praise of your intellect and strength of character no praise has been bestowed upon you for your good qualities; you yourself don’t claim to have them, and you do not look upon them as worth having, but rather you regard them as characteristic of stupidity. Consequently you will not ask further praise than what I have just given you. But I can say one thing more in your favor: of all the people whom I do not like, and with whom I do not like to have business, I would rather deal with you than all the rest. Of course you are unmerciful wherever it affects your advantage; but if you have no advantage in doing anybody harm, you will not do it out of stupid little spitefulness. You consider that it is not worth while to lose time, labor, and money without return. Of course you would have been glad to roast your daughter and her husband over a slow fire; but you were able to curb your revengeful inclination and to reason the matter over coolly, and you understood that you had no chance of success in roasting them, and this is a great thing, Marya Alekséyevna, to be able to recognize an impossibility! When you once recognized it you gave up your idea of beginning a lawsuit, since the lawsuit would not punish the people who stirred up your anger; you calculated that those little unpleasantnesses, which a lawsuit would cause them, would bring you yourself into more bother and expense, and therefore you did not begin the lawsuit. If it is impossible to conquer an enemy; if, in causing him a trifling loss you are causing yourself a greater, then you had better not begin the battle; you understood this, and you had the common sense and courage to yield to an impossibility, without unnecessarily causing harm to yourself or anybody else: this, too, was a great thing, Marya Alekséyevna. Yes, Marya Alekséyevna, one can get along with you; you do not indulge in wrath for the sake of wrath, to your own detriment: and this is a very rare and very important quality, Marya Alekséyevna. Millions of people are more injurious to themselves and others than you are, Marya Alekséyevna, even though they may not have that detestable side that you have. You are better than the majority of those who are simply bad, because you are not without reason and are not stupid. I should have been glad to sponge you off from the face of the earth, but I have a certain regard for you: you do harm in no way. Now you are spending your time in mean business because your environment is so constituted, but put you into other circumstances, and you would take delight in being harmless, in being even useful, because you do not want to do any harm without being paid for it, and it were profitable to you, you could do whatever you wanted; consequently, you would act honorably and nobly if it were advisable. You are capable of doing so, Marya Alekséyevna, and you are not to blame because this capability is latent; that instead of doing so, you are acting in a contrary way; but you possess it, and this cannot be said of all. Wretches are capable of doing anything. You are only a bad woman, but you are not hopelessly a wretched woman. You are higher than many, even if judged by the moral standard.
“Are you satisfied, Marya Alekséyevna?”
“What should I be satisfied for, bátiushka. My circumstances are bad, aren’t they?”
“That is all right, Marya Alekséyevna!”