"I was told that he mentioned you in the letter he left.Was it true?
"Yes," Mashurina replied after a pause.
"What a splendid chap he was! He didn't fall into the right rut somehow.He was about as fitted to be a revolutionist as I am! Do you know what he really was? The idealist of realism.Do you understand me?"Mashurina flung him a rapid glance.She did not understand him and did not want to understand him.It seemed to her impertinent that he should compare himself to Nejdanov."Let him brag!" she thought, though he was not bragging at all, but rather depreciating himself, according to his own ideas.
"Some fellow called Silin sought me out; Nejdanov, it seems, had left a letter for him too.Well, he wanted to know if Alexai had left any papers, but we hunted through all his things and found nothing.He must have burned everything, even his poems.Did you know that he wrote verses? I'm sorry they were destroyed; there must have been some good things among them.They all vanished with him-- became lost in the general whirl, dead and gone for ever.Nothing was left except the memories of his friends-- until they, too, vanish in their turn!"Paklin ceased.
"Do you remember the Sipiagins?" he began again; "those respectable, patronising, loathsome swells are now at the very height of power and glory." Mashurina, of course, did not remember the Sipiagins, but Paklin hated them so much that he could not keep from abusing them on every possible occasion.
"They say there's such a high tone in their house! they're always talking about virtue! It's a bad sign, I think.Reminds me rather of an over-scented sick room.There must be some bad smell to conceal.Poor Alexai! It was they who ruined him!""And what is Solomin doing?" Mashurina asked.She had suddenly ceased wishing to hear Paklin talk about him.
"Solomin!" Paklin exclaimed."He's a clever chap! turned out well too.He's left the old factory and taken all the best men with him.There was one fellow there called Pavel-- could do anything;he's taken him along too.They say he has a small factory of his own now, somewhere near Perm, run on cooperative lines.He's all right! he'll stick to anything he undertakes.Got some grit in him! His strength lies in the fact that he doesn't attempt to cure all the social ills with one blow.What a rum set we are to be sure, we Russians! We sit down quietly and wait for something or someone to come along and cure us all at once; heal all our wounds, pull out all our diseases, like a bad tooth.But who or what is to work this magic spell, Darwinism, the land, the Archbishop Perepentiev, a foreign war, we don't know and don't care, but we must have our tooth pulled out for us! It's nothing but mere idleness, sluggishness, want of thinking.Solomin, on the other hand, is different; he doesn't go in for pulling teeth-- he knows what he's about!"
Mashurina gave an impatient wave of the hand, as though she wished to dismiss the subject.
"And that girl," she began, "I forget her name...the one who ran away with Nejdanov-- what became of her?""Mariana? She's Solomin's wife now.They married over a year ago.
It was merely for the sake of formality at first, but now they say she really is his wife."Mashurina gave another impatient gesture.There was a time when she was jealous of Mariana, but now she was indignant with her for having been false to Nejdanov's memory.
"I suppose they have a baby by now," she said in an offhanded tone.
"I really don't know.But where are you off to?" Paklin asked, seeing that she had taken up her hat."Do stay a little longer;my sister will bring us some tea directly."It was not so much that he wanted Mashurina to stay, as that he could not let an opportunity slip by of giving utterance to what had accumulated and was boiling over in his breast.Since his return to St.Petersburg he had seen very little of people, especially of the younger generation.The Nejdanov affair had scared him; he grew more cautious, avoided society, and the young generation on their side looked upon him with suspicion.Once someone had even called him a traitor to his face.
As he was not fond of associating with the elder generation, it sometimes fell to his lot to be silent for weeks.To his sister he could not speak out freely, not because he considered her too stupid to understand him-- oh, no! he had the highest opinion of her intelligence-- but as soon as he began letting off some of his pet fireworks she would look at him with those sad reproachful eyes of hers, ****** him feel quite ashamed.And really, how is a man to go through life without letting off just a few squibs every now and again? So life in St.Petersburg became insupportable to Paklin and he longed to remove to Moscow.
Speculations of all sorts-- ideas, fancies, and sarcasms-- were stored up in him like water in a closed mill.The floodgates could not be opened and the water grew stagnant.With the appearance of Mashurina the gates opened wide, and all his pent-up ideas came pouring out with a rush.He talked about St.
Petersburg, St.Petersburg life, the whole of Russia.No one was spared! Mashurina was very little interested in all this, but she did not contradict or interrupt, and that was all he wanted of her.
"Yes," he began, "a fine time we are living in, I can assure you!
