LITMIR.BIZ

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      “For a long time he did not deign to answer me. He was sitting over some mathematical problem, he was working out something; one could see it was a brain-racking problem. He drew the breeches of Pythagoras, while I was there, I saw him myself. I repeated it three times, only at the fourth he raised his head and seemed to see me for the first time. ‘I am not coming,’ he said; ‘a learned gentleman has arrived here now, so I should be out of place beside a luminary like that!’ He made use of that expression ’beside a luminary’.”

      And the horrid old man stole a sly glance at me.

      “That is just what I expected,” cried my uncle, clasping his hands. “That’s how I thought it would be. He says that about you, Sergey, that you are a ‘learned gentleman’. Well, what’s to be done now?”

      “I must confess, uncle,” I answered with dignity, shrugging my shoulders, “it seems to me such an absurd refusal that it is not worth noticing, and I really wonder at your being troubled by it...”

      “Oh, my boy, you know nothing about it!” he cried, with a vigorous wave of his hand.

      “It’s no use grieving now, sir,” Miss Perepelitsyn put in suddenly, “since all the wicked causes of it have come from you in the first place, Yegor Ilyitch. If you take off your head you don’t weep for your hair. You should have listened to your mamma, sir, and you would have had no cause for tears now.”

      “Why, how am I to blame, Anna Nilovna? Have some fear of God!” said my uncle in an imploring voice, as though begging for an explanation.

      “I do fear God, Yegor Ilyitch; but it all comes from your being an egoist, sir, and not loving your mother,” Miss Perepelitsyn answered with dignity. “Why didn’t you respect her wishes in the first place? She is your mother, sir. And I am not likely to tell you a lie, sir. I am a major’s daughter myself, and not just anybody, sir.”

      It seemed to me that Miss Perepelitsyn had intervened in the conversation with the sole object of informing us all, and me in particular as a new-comer, that she was a major’s daughter and not just anybody.

      “It’s because he ill-treats his own mother,” Madame la Générale herself brought out at last in a menacing voice.

      “Mamma, have mercy on us! How am I ill-treating you?”

      “It is because you are a black-hearted egoist, Yegorushka,” Madame la Générale went on, growing more and more animated.

      “Mamma, mamma! in what way am I a black-hearted egoist?” cried my uncle, almost in despair. “For five days, for five whole days you have been angry with me and will not speak to me. And what for? what for? Let them judge me, let the whole world judge me! But let them hear my defence too. I have long kept silent, mamma, you would not hear me; let these people hear me now. Anfisa Petrovna! Pavel Semyonitch, generous Pavel Semyonitch! Sergey, my dear! You are an outsider, you are, so to speak, a spectator. You can judge impartially....”

      “Calm yourself, Yegor Ilyitch, calm yourself,” cried Anfisa Petrovna, “don’t kill your mamma.”

      “I am not killing my mamma, Anfisa Petrovna; but here I lay bare my heart, you can strike at it!” my uncle went on, worked up to the utmost pitch as people of weak character sometimes are when they are driven out of all patience, though their heat is like the fire of burning straws. “I want to say, Anfisa Petrovna, that I am not ill-treating any one. I start with saying that Foma Fomitch is the noblest and the most honourable of men, and a man of superior qualities too, but... but he has been unjust to me in this case.”

      “H’m!” grunted Obnoskin, as though he wanted to irritate my uncle still more.

      “Pavel Semyonitch, noble-hearted Pavel Semyonitch! Can you really think that I am, so to speak, an unfeeling stone?

      Why, I see, I understand — with tears in my heart, I may say I understand — that all this misunderstanding comes from the excess of his affection for me. But, say what you like, he really is unjust in this case. I will tell you all about it. I want to tell the whole story, Anfisa Petrovna, clearly and in full detail, that you may see from what the thing started, and whether mamma is right in being angry with me for not satisfying Foma Fomitch. And you listen too, Seryozha,” he added, addressing me, which he did, indeed, during the rest of his story, as though he were afraid of his other listeners and doubtful of their sympathy; “you, too, listen and decide whether I am right or wrong. You will see what the whole business arose from. A week ago — yes, not more than a week — my old chief, General Rusapetov, was passing through our town with his wife and stepdaughter, and broke the journey there. I was overwhelmed. I hastened to seize the opportunity, I flew over, presented myself and invited them to dinner. He promised to come if it were possible. He is a very fine man, I assure you; he is conspicuous for his virtues and is a man of the highest rank into the bargain! He has been a benefactor to his stepdaughter; he married an orphan girl to an admirable young man (now a lawyer at Malinova; still a young man, but with, one may say, an all-round education); in short, he is a general of generals. Well, of course there was a tremendous fuss and bustle in the house — cooks, fricassees — I sent for an orchestra. I was delighted, of course, and looked festive; Foma Fomitch did not like my being delighted and looking festive! He sat down to the table — I remember, too, he was handed his favourite jelly and cream — he sat on and on without saying a word, then all at once jumped up. ‘I am being insulted, insulted!’

      ‘But why, in what way are you being insulted, Foma Fomitch?’

      ‘You despise me now,’ he said; ‘you are taken up with generals now, you think more of generals now than of me.’ Well, of course I am making a long story short, so to say, I am only giving you the pith of it; but if only you knew what he said besides... in a word, he stirred me to my inmost depths. What was I to do? I was depressed by it, of course; it was a blow to me, I may say. I went about like a cock drenched with rain. The festive day arrived. The general sent to say he couldn’t come, he apologised — so he was not coming. I went to Foma. ‘Come, Foma,’ I said, ‘set your mind at rest, he is not coming.’ And would you believe it, he wouldn’t forgive me, and that was the end of it. ‘I have been insulted,’ he said, ‘and that is all about it!’ I said this and that. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You can go to your generals; you think more of generals than of me, you have broken our bonds of friendship,’ he said. Of course, my dear. I understand what he was angry over, I am not a block, I am not a sheep, I am not a perfect post. It was, of course, from the excess of his affection for me, from jealousy — he says that himself — he is jealous of the general on my account, he is afraid of losing my affection, he is testing me, he wants to see how much I am ready to sacrifice for him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I am just as good as the general for you, I am myself “your Excellency” for you! I will be reconciled to you when you prove your respect for me.’ ‘In what way am I to prove my respect for you, Foma Fomitch?’ ‘Call me for a whole day “your Excellency”, says he, ‘then you will prove your respect.’ I felt as though I were dropping from the clouds; you can picture my amazement. ‘That will serve you,’ said he, ‘as a lesson not to be in ecstasies at the sight of generals when there are other people, perhaps, superior to all your generals.’ Well, at that point I lost patience, I confess it! I confess it openly. ‘Foma Fomitch,’ I said, ’is such a thing possible? Can I take it upon myself to do it? Can I, have I the right to promote you to be a general? Think who it is bestows the rank of a general. How can I address you as, “your Excellency”? Why, it is infringing the decrees of Providence! Why, the general is an honour to his country; the general has faced the enemy, he has shed his blood on the field of honour. How am I to call you “your Excellency”?’ He would not give way, there was no doing anything. ‘Whatever you want, Foma,’ I said, ‘I will do anything for you. Here you told me to shave off my whiskers because they were not patriotic enough — I shaved them off; I frowned, but I did shave them. What is more, I will do anything you like, only do give up the rank of a general!’

      ‘No,’ said he, ‘I won’t be reconciled till you call me “your Excellency”; that,’ said he, ‘will be good for your moral

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