III
Viéra Pavlovna’s Second Dream
And here Viéra Pavlovna falls asleep, and Viéra Pavlovna dreams a dream.
A field, and across the field goes a man, namely, her mílenki, together with Alekséi Petróvitch, and her mílenki says: “You are interested in knowing why some dirt brings forth wheat so white, and pure, and delicate, while other dirt does not bring it forth at all. You will soon see the difference yourself. Look at the root of this beautiful ear of wheat. Around the root is dirt, but this dirt is just pulled up, you might even call it clean; you smell a moist odor, disagreeable, but not foul, and not putrid. You know that in the philosophical language which you and I use, this clean dirt is called actual dirt. It is dirt, to be sure; but look at it attentively and you will see that all the elements of which it is composed are healthy in themselves. When they are gathered together, they make dirt; but let the atoms change in some degree their relative coordination, and something else will take its place, and all that takes its place will be healthy, because the fundamental elements are healthy. Whence comes the healthy element of this dirt? Just notice the situation of this little field: you see that there is a ditch here for the water to run, and therefore there can be no rottenness here.”
“Yes, motion is reality,” says Alekséi Petróvitch, “because motion is life; and reality and life are one and the same thing. But the main element of life is labor, and therefore, the main element of reality is labor, and the truest sign of reality is activity.”
“So you see, Alekséi Petróvitch, when the sun begins to warm this dirt, and the warmth begins to transfer its elements into a more complicated chemical correlation, into the correlation of higher forms, the wheat ear which grows out of this dirt through the warmth of the sun will be a healthy wheat ear.”
“Yes, it is because it is the soil of actual life, Alekséi Petróvitch.”
“Now let us go to the next field; let us also here pull up a plant, and examine its root. It is also dirty. But just notice the nature of this dirt. It is not hard to see that this dirt is rotten.”
“This is fantastic dirt, to use the scientific terminology,” says Alekséi Petróvitch.
“It’s so; the elements of this dirt are in an unhealthy state. It is natural that no matter how they are transposed, the things not resembling dirt, derived from this dirt will be unhealthy and rotten.”
“Yes; it is because the very elements are unhealthy,” says Alekséi Petróvitch.
“It will not be hard for us to find the cause of this unhealthiness.”
“That is, of this fantastic rottenness,” says Alekséi Petróvitch.
“Yes, the rottenness of these elements; if you will notice the situation of this field, you see the water has no ditch, and there it becomes stagnant and rotten.”
“Yes, absence of motion is absence of labor,” says Alekséi Petróvitch. “Because labor is shown in anthropological analysis to be the radical form of motion, and which gives foundation and material for all other forms—recreation, rest, amusement, gayety; all these without the preliminary labor have no reality; and without motion, there is no life, that is, there is no reality; therefore, this dirt is fantastic, in other words, rotten. Till within a short time ago, men did not know how to restore health to such fields; but now means has been found; that is, drainage. The superfluous water runs off in canals, and enough remains, and it is kept in motion, and the field becomes practicable. But as long as this means is not applied, the dirt remains fantastic, that is to say, rotten, and it cannot produce any good crops; whereas, as is very natural, from the good dirt they get good crops, because it is healthy dirt. And this is what we wanted to prove; quod erat demonstrandum, as they say in Latin.”
As they spoke in Latin the words meaning “which was to be proven,” Viéra Pavlovna did not catch the words.
“And you, Alekséi Petróvitch, have a desire to amuse yourself with hog-Latin and syllogisms,” says her mílenki; that is, her husband.
Viéra Pavlovna here seemed to join them and say, “Now do stop talking about your analyses, identities, and anthropologisms. Please talk about something, gentlemen, so that I may take part in your conversation; or rather, let us play.”
“Yes, let us play,” said Alekséi Petróvitch. “Let us play ‘Confession.’ ”
“Come on! come on! It’ll be very gay,” says Viéra Pavlovna. “You suggested the game; now you must show us how to do it.”
“With pleasure, my sister,” says Alekséi Petróvitch. “But how old are you, my dear sister? eighteen?”
“I shall soon be nineteen.”
“But you are not yet; therefore, let us suppose that you are eighteen, and we will all confess what we did till we were eighteen, because we must have an equality of conditions. I will confess for myself and my wife. My father was a diakŏn in a governmental town, and then he took up the business of bookbinding; and my mother took seminarists to board. From morning till night my father and mother were always worrying and talking about how to live. Father used to drink, but only at times when intolerable want stared him in the face—that was real grief; or, when his income was pretty good, he used to give my mother all he had, and say, ‘Well, mátushka, now thank God, you will not suffer want for two months to come; but I have left half a ruble in my pocket, and I shall take a drink for very joy’—that was a real joy. My mother used to get vexed very often. Sometimes she used to beat me, but only when she had a pain in the small of the back, as she herself used to say, from lifting the boiler and kettles, from washing all the clothes of five of us besides five seminarists, and from washing the floors dirtied by our twenty feet which did not wear galoshes, and from taking care of the cow. It is a real strain upon the nerves to bear too much labor without rest. And for all that, the ends did not used to meet, as she expressed it; that is, she was short of money for getting boots for some one of us brothers, or shoes for the sisters. Then she used to beat us. She used to pet us too, when we, stupid little children that we were, expressed a desire to help her in her work, or whenever we did anything clever, or whenever she took a very rare moment of rest, and her back did not ache, as she used to say—all that was a real joy—”
“Akh! don’t tell us anything more about your real sorrows and joys,” says Viéra Pavlovna.
“If that is the case, perhaps you would like to hear Natasha’s confession?”
“I do not want to hear it. She, too, had the same kind of real sorrows and joys, I am sure of it.”
“That’s absolutely true.”
“But, maybe, you will be interested in hearing my confession,” says Serge, who suddenly appeared to be with them.
“We will see,” says Viéra Pavlovna.
“My father and mother, though they were rich, yet they always worried and talked about money. Rich people, too, are not free from such kinds of worriment—”
“You don’t know how to play ‘Confession,’ Serge,” said Alekséi Petróvitch, politely. “Please tell me why they worried about money matters? What expenses worried them? What necessities put them into embarrassment?”
“Yes, I understand why you ask that,” said Serge; “but let us drop this subject. Let us turn to the other view of their thoughts. They, too, took care of their children.”
“But they always had enough to give their children, didn’t they?” asked Alekséi Petróvitch.
“Of course; but they had to look out that—”
“Don’t play ‘Confession,’ Serge,” said Alekséi Petróvitch. “We know your whole story; care about superfluities, thoughts about things not necessary, have been the soil in which you grew up; that is, a fantastic soil. Just look at yourself! You are naturally not at all a stupid man, but a very good man; maybe not worse and not more stupid than we are; but what are you good for? what is the use of your living?”
“I am good for escorting Julie everywhere that she wants me to go. I help Julie to spend all the money she wants to spend,” replies Serge.
“From this we see,” says Alekséi Petróvitch, “that a fantastic and unhealthy soil—”
“Akh! how tired I am of your realism and fantasticism! I don’t know what they mean by such terms, and still they keep on using them,” says Viéra Pavlovna.
“Wouldn’t you like to talk with me?” asks Marya Alekséyevna, who also appeared suddenly. “You gentlemen get away from here, for I want to talk with my daughter.”
All disappear. Viérotchka finds herself alone with Marya Alekséyevna. Marya Alekséyevna’s face assumes a laughing expression.
“Viéra Pavlovna, you are an educated woman; you are so virtuous and high-toned,” says Marya Alekséyevna, and her voice trembles with anger; “you are so kind; how can I then, who am rough and a drunkard, talk with you? Viéra Pavlovna, you have a bad and beastly mother; but allow me to ask, lady, why your mother took all the bother she did for you? It was about victuals. This, according to your idea, is a genuine care peculiar to humanity; isn’t that so? You have had scoldings, you have seen bad deeds and meanness; but allow me to ask what they were meant for? Was it for nothing? Was it all nonsense? No, lady; no matter how things go in your family, it was not an empty, fantastic life. You see, Viéra Pavlovna, I have learned to speak as you do, in scientific language. But it may grieve you and shame you, Viéra Pavlovna, that your mother is a bad and ill-tempered woman? Would you like, Viéra Pavlovna, for me to become a good and honest woman? I am an enchantress, Viéra Pavlovna; I can bewitch things; I can fulfil your wish. Just look, Viéra Pavlovna! your wish is already being fulfilled. I, who am vixenish, vanish. Look at this kind mother and her daughter!”
A room. On the doorsill snores a drunken, unshaven, miserable man. Who it is cannot be told; his face is half covered with his hand, and the rest is discolored and bruised. A bed. On the bed a woman; yes, it is Marya Alekséyevna; but how kind, but how pale she is! how feeble, though she is only forty-five years old! how exhausted! By the bedside is a young girl of eighteen. “It is I myself, Viérotchka; but how ragged I seem! What does this mean? my complexion is so yellow, and my features are so rough! and what a miserable chamber! Scarcely any furniture!”
“Viérotchka, my dear, my angel,” says Marya Alekséyevna, “just lie down and take a rest, my treasure. Why do you watch with me? I can attend to myself. This is the third night that you have not slept.”
“Never mind; I am not tired,” says Viérotchka.
“I am not any better, Viérotchka. How will you get along without me? Your father’s pittance is as small as it can be, and he himself is a poor support to you. You are a pretty girl. There are many bad people in this world. There will be no one to watch over you. I tremble for you.” Viérotchka weeps.
“My dear, don’t be grieved; I am telling you this, not to blame you, but to warn you. What made you leave home on Friday, the day before I fell sick?” Viérotchka weeps.
“He will deceive you, Viérotchka. Give him up.”
“No, mámenka.”
Two months pass. How is it that two months pass in one minute? An army officer is sitting. On the table before the officer is a bottle. On the officer’s knees is she, Viérotchka.
Again two months more have passed in one minute.
A lady is sitting. Before the lady she, Viérotchka, is standing.
“Can you iron, dear?”
“I can.”
“To what class do you belong? Are you a serf or free?”
“My father was a tchinovnik.”
“So you belong to the nobility, my dear? Then I can’t take you. What kind of a servant would you make? Go away, my dear; I can’t take you.”
Viérotchka is on the street.
“Mademoiselle! ho, mademoiselle!” says some young drunken fellow, accosting her. “Where are you going? Let me escort you.”
Viérotchka runs to the Neva.
“Well, my dear, have you seen all these things that my magic art has conjured up? How do you like being with your kind mother?” asks the real Marya Alekséyevna, again appearing. “Am I not a good enchantress? Hain’t I hit it off well? Why don’t you speak? You have a tongue in your mouth, hain’t you? I’ll squeeze a word out of you! It’s so hard to make you speak. Have you been shopping?”
“Yes,” says Viérotchka; and she trembles.
“Have you seen, have you heard, what’s going on?”
“Yes.”
“Do they live well, them learned folks? Do they read books, and think as you do about your new plan for folks getting along better? Do they? Tell me!”
Viérotchka says nothing, but she trembles.
“Ek! there ain’t nothing to be got out of you. Do they live well? Hear my question!”
Viérotchka says nothing, but she is in a cold sweat.
“One can’t git a word out of you! Do they live well? I ask you. Are they good? I ask you. Would you like to be like them? You don’t speak! You turn away your phiz! Just listen, Viérotchka, to what I am going to say! You are educated; you are educated on money that I stole. You are thinking about the good; but if I had not been bad, you would not have even known what good is. Do you understand? You owe all to me. You are my daughter. Do you understand? I am your mother!”
Viérotchka weeps and trembles, and is in a cold sweat. “Mámenka, what do you want of me? I cannot love you.”
“Do I ask you to love me?”
“I should like at least to respect you; but I cannot do that, either.”
“Do I need your respect?”
“What do you want, then, mámenka? Why have you come to me, and why do you speak so harshly to me? What do you want of me?”
“Be grateful, you selfish girl! Do not love, do not respect me? I am a vixen; why should you love me? I am bad; why should you respect me? But you understand, Viérka, that if I were not what I am, you would not be what you are. You are good because I am bad. You are sweet-tempered because I am a vixen. Understand that, Viérka, and be grateful.”
“Leave me, Marya Alekséyevna; I want to speak with my sister.”
Marya Alekséyevna vanishes.
The bride of her bridegrooms, the sister of her sisters, takes Viérotchka by the hand. “Viérotchka, I always wanted to be kind to you because I am kind and I am just as the person is with whom I speak. But now you are melancholy, so you see I too am melancholy. Look! do I make a good appearance being melancholy?”
“You look better than anyone else in the world.”
“Kiss me, Viérotchka. We both of us are sad; and yet your mother spoke the truth. I do not like your mother, but I need her help.”
“Can’t you get along without her?”
“By and by I shall be able to get along without her, when people will not need to be ill-tempered; but now it is impossible. You see, kind people cannot get to their feet alone. It is the ill-tempered who alone are strong. They are keen. But you see, Viérotchka, that there are different degrees of ill-temper: some of them want everything in the world to go to the bad; others, who are just as ill-tempered, want things to improve, because it would be better for their interests. You see it was necessary for your mother’s plans to have you educated. She took your money which you got by giving lessons, because she wanted her daughter to capture a rich son-in-law for her; and for that same reason she wanted you to be educated. You see she had bad thoughts, and yet they brought forth good for mankind. Haven’t you been benefited? But many bad people act otherwise. If your mother had been Anna Petrovna, would you have studied so as to become educated? Would you have learned what was good, and loved it? No; you would not have been allowed to learn about the good; you would have been made a doll. Isn’t it so? Such a mother must have a doll in her daughter, because she herself is a doll, and she is always playing dolls with dolls. But your mother was a bad woman; yet she was a character. It was necessary for her that you should not be a doll. Don’t you see how the wicked vary? Others are hindering me, because I want men to be men, and not dolls; they want men to be dolls. And other bad people are helping me. They do not consciously help me, but they give ample chance for men to be men; they gather the means for men to be men, and this is all that I want. Yes, Viérotchka, now I cannot get along without such bad people, since they work against the other kind of bad. My bad people are bad, but under their cruel hands the good is growing. Yes, Viérotchka, be grateful to your mother. Do not love her; she is bad; but you owe everything to her, know that; without her, you would not have been!”
“And will it always be so, or will it change?”
“No, Viérotchka, it will not always be so; it will change by and by. When the kind become strong, I shall not need the ill-tempered; and this will be soon, Viérotchka. Then the bad will see that it is impossible for them to be bad; and those ill-tempered who had any character will become kind. They were ill-tempered only because it was contrary to their interests to be kind; because they know that goodness is better than badness. They will begin to love it when it will be possible for them to love it without injuring their interests.”
“And what will become of the bad who were dolls? I feel sorry for them, too!”
“They will play with other kinds of dolls, only they will be harmless dolls. But they will have children different from what they themselves are, because I will make all men to be men, and I shall teach their children not to be dolls, but men.”
“Akh! how good that will be!”
“Yes, even now it is good, because this good is in preparation; at least, those who, helping to bring it about, are already enjoying it. When you, Viérotchka, help your cook to get your dinner ready, it may be suffocating in the kitchen, but it is good for you. What do you care for the gas and suffocating odors! All enjoy sitting at dinner, but more than all he who helps get it ready; it tastes doubly sweet to him. And you like to eat good things, Viérotchka, don’t you?”
“It is true,” says Viérotchka; and she smiles because she was caught in liking sweetmeats, and in liking to prepare them in the kitchen.
“Then, why are you melancholy? You are not melancholy any more!”
“How kind you are!”
“And happy, Viérotchka; I am always happy, Viérotchka! Even when I am melancholy, yet I am happy; is not that true?”
“Yes; but when I am melancholy, you also come as though you were melancholy, and you always drive away the blues. I am happy with you, very happy.”
“Do you remember the little song, ‘Donc vivons?’ ”
“I do.”
“Let us sing it!”
“All right!”
“Viérotchka! Viérotchka, have I waked you up? However, breakfast is ready. I was frightened, I heard you groaning; I came in, and you were singing in your sleep.”
“No, my mílenki, you didn’t wake me; I should have waked myself. But what a strange dream I had, mílenki; I will tell you at tea. Leave me; I want to get dressed. And how did you dare to come into my room without permission, Dmitri Sergéitch? You forget yourself. Were you frightened about me, my mílenki? Come here, and I will kiss you for it!” She kissed him. “Now leave me! leave me! I want to get dressed.”
“Oh, let me stay! I’ll act as your dressing-maid.”
“Nu! I don’t object, only how shameful it is.”