LITMIR.BIZ

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acquaintance of literary men in Petersburg.”

      Stepan Alexyevitch, who had been sitting apart all the time lost in thought, suddenly raised his head, reddened, and turned in his chair with exasperation.

      “Don’t you provoke me, Foma, but leave me in peace,” he said, looking wrathfully at Foma, with his little bloodshot eyes. “What is your literature to me? May God only give me good health,” he muttered to himself, “and plague take them all... and their authors too... Voltairians, that’s what they are!”

      “Authors are Voltairians?” said Yezhevikin immediately at his side. “Perfectly true what you have been pleased to remark, Stepan Alexyevitch. Valentin Ignatyitch was pleased to express the same sentiments the other day. He actually called me a Voltairian, upon my soul he did! And yet, as you all know, I have written very little so far.... If a bowl of milk goes sour—it’s all Voltaire’s fault! That’s how it is with everything here.”

      “Well, no,” observed my uncle with dignity, “that’s an error, you know! Voltaire was nothing but a witty writer; he laughed at superstitions; and he never was a Voltairian! It was his enemies spread that rumour about him. Why were they all against him, really, poor fellow?...”

      Again the malignant snigger of Foma Fomitch was audible. My uncle looked at him uneasily and was perceptibly embarrassed.

      “Yes, Foma, I am thinking about the magazine, you see,” he said in confusion, trying to put himself right somehow. “You were perfectly right, my dear Foma, when you said the other day that we ought to subscribe to one. I think we ought to, myself. H’m... after all, they do assist in the diffusion of enlightenment; one would be a very poor patriot if one did not support them. Wouldn’t one, Sergey. H’m... Yes... The Contemporary, for instance. But, do you know, Seryozha, the most instruction, to my thinking, is to be found in that thick magazine—what’s its name?—in a yellow cover...”

      “Notes of the Fatherland, papa.”

      “Oh, yes, Notes of the Fatherland, and a capital title, Sergey, isn’t it? It is, so to say, the whole Fatherland sitting writing notes.... A very fine object. A most edifying magazine. And what a thick one! What a job to publish such an omnibus! And the information in it almost makes one’s eyes start out of one’s head. I came in the other day, the volume was lying here, I took it up and from curiosity opened it and reeled off three pages at a go. It made me simply gape, my dear! And, you know, there is information about everything; what is meant, for instance, by a broom, a spade, a ladle, an ovenrake. To my thinking, a broom is a broom and an ovenrake an ovenrake! No, my boy, wait a bit. According to the learned, an ovenrake turns out not an ovenrake, but an emblem or something mythological; I don’t remember exactly, but something of the sort.... So that’s how it is! They have gone into everything!”

      I don’t know what precisely Foma was preparing to do after this fresh outburst from my uncle, but at that moment Gavrila appeared and stood with bowed head in the doorway.

      Foma Fomitch glanced at him significantly.

      “Ready, Gavrila?” he asked in a faint but resolute voice.

      “Yes, sir,” Gavrila answered mournfully, and heaved a sigh.

      “And have you put my bundle on the cart?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Well, then, I am ready too!” said Foma, and he deliberately go up from his easy-chair. My uncle looked at him in amazement. Madame la Générale jumped up from her seat and looked about her uneasily.

      “Allow me, Colonel,” Foma began with dignity, “to ask you to leave for a moment the interesting subject of literary oven- rakes; you can continue it after I am gone. As I am taking leave of you for ever, I should like to say a few last words to you...”

      Every listener was spellbound with alarm and amazement.

      “Foma! Foma! but what is the matter with you? Where are you going?” my uncle cried at last.

      “I am about to leave your house, Colonel,” Foma brought out in a perfectly composed voice. “I have made up my mind to go where fortune takes me, and so I have hired at my own expense a humble peasant’s cart. My bundle is lying in it already, it is of no great dimensions: a few favourite books, two changes of linen—that is all! I am a poor man, Yegor Ilyitch, but nothing in the world would induce me now to take your gold, which I refused even yesterday!”

      “But for God’s sake, Foma, what is the meaning of it?” cried my uncle, turning as white as a sheet.

      Madame la Générale uttered a shriek and looked in despair at Foma Fomitch, stretching out her hands to him. Miss Perepelitsyn flew to support her. The lady companions sat petrified in their chairs. Mr. Bahtcheyev got up heavily from his seat.

      “Well, here’s a pretty to-do!” Mizintchikov whispered beside me.

      At that moment a distant rumble of thunder was heard; a Storm was coming on.

Chapter 4 — The Expulsion

      “You ask me, I believe, Colonel, what is the meaning of this?” Foma brought out with a solemn dignity, as though enjoying the general consternation. “I am surprised at the question! Will you on your side explain how it is you can bring yourself to look me in the face now? Explain to me this last psychological problem in human shamelessness, and then I shall depart, the richer for new knowledge of the depravity of the human race.”

      But my uncle was not equal to answering him. With open mouth and staring eyes he gazed at Foma, alarmed and annihilated.

      “Merciful heavens! What passions!” hissed Miss Perepelitsyn.

      “Do you understand, Colonel,” Foma went on, “that you had better let me go now, simply without asking questions? In your house even I, a man of years and understanding, begin to feel the purity of my morals gravely endangered. Believe me, that your questions can lead to nothing but putting you to shame.”

      “Foma! Foma!” cried my uncle, and a cold perspiration came out on his forehead.

      “And so allow me without further explanation to say a few farewell words at parting, my last words in your house, Yegor Ilyitch. The thing is done and there is no undoing it! I hope that you understand to what I am referring. But I implore you on my knees: if one spark of moral feeling is left in your heart, curb your unbridled passions! And if the noxious poison has not yet caught the whole edifice, then, as far as possible, extinguish the fire!”

      “Foma, I assure you that you are in error!” cried my uncle, recovering himself little by little and foreseeing with horror the climax.

      “Moderate your passions,” Foma continued in the same solemn voice, as though he had not heard my uncle’s exclamation, “conquer yourself. ‘If thou would’st conquer all the world —conquer thyself.’ That is my invariable rule. You are a landowner; you ought to shine like a diamond in your estate, and what a vile example of unbridled passion you set your inferiors! I have been praying for you the whole night, and trembled as I sought for your happiness. I did not find it, for happiness lies in virtue....”

      “But this is impossible, Foma!” my uncle interrupted him again. “You have misunderstood and what you say is quite wrong.”

      “And so remember you are a landowner,” Foma went on, still regardless of my uncle’s exclamations. “Do not imagine that repose and sensuality are the destined vocation of the landowning class. Fatal thought! Not repose, but zealous work, zealous towards God, towards your sovereign, and towards your country! Hard work, hard work is the duty of the landowner, he should work as hard as the poorest of his peasants!”

      “What, am I to plough for the peasant, or what?” growled Bahtcheyev. “Why, I am a landowner, too....”

      “I turn to you now, servants of the house,” Foma went on, addressing Gavrila and Falaley, who had appeared in the doorway. “Love your master and his family, and obey them humbly and meekly, and they will reward you with their

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