LITMIR.BIZ

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written Frol Silin; it is a noble epic! It is a purely national product, and will live for ages and ages! a most lofty epic!”

      “Just so, just so! a lofty epoch! Frol Silin, a benevolent man! I remember, I have read it. He bought the freedom of two girls, too, and then looked towards heaven and wept. A very lofty trait,” my uncle chimed in, beaming with satisfaction.

      My poor uncle! he never could resist taking part in an intellectual conversation. Foma gave a malicious smile, but he remained silent.

      “They write very interestingly, though, even now,” Anfisa Petrovna intervened discreetly. “The Mysteries of Brussels, for instance.”

      “I should not say so,” observed Foma, as it were regretfully. “I was lately reading one of the poems … not up to much! ‘Forget-me-nots’. Of contemporary writers, if you will, the one I like best of all is ‘Scribbler’, a light pen!”

      “‘Scribbler’!” cried Anfisa Petrovna. “Is that the man who writes letters in the magazines? Ah, how enchanting it is, what playing with words!”

      “Precisely, playing with words; he, so to speak, plays with his pen. An extraordinary lightness of style.”

      “Yes, but he is a pedant!” Obnoskin observed carelessly.

      “Yes, a pedant he is, I don’t dispute it; but a charming pedant, a graceful pedant! Of course, not one of his ideas would stand serious criticism, but one is carried away by his lightness! A babbler, I agree, but a charming babbler, a graceful babbler. Do you remember, for instance, in one of his articles he mentions that he has his own estates?”

      “Estates!” my uncle caught up. “That’s good! In what province?”

      Foma stopped, looking fixedly at my uncle, and went on in the same tone:

      “Tell me in the name of common sense, of what interest is it to me, the reader, to know that he has his own estates? If he has — I congratulate him on it! But how charmingly, how jestingly, it is described! He sparkles with wit, he splashes with wit, he boils over? He is a Narzan of wit! Yes, that is the way to write! I fancy I should write just like that, if I were to consent to write for magazines. …”

      “Perhaps you would do even better,” Yezhevikin observed respectfully.

      “There is positively something musical in the language,” my uncle put in.

      Foma Fomitch lost patience at last.

      “Colonel,” he said, “is it not possible to ask you — with all conceivable delicacy of course — not to interfere with us, but to allow us to finish our conversation in peace. You cannot offer an opinion in our conversation! You cannot. Don’t disturb our agreeable literary chat. Look after your land, drink your tea, but … leave literature alone. It will lose nothing by it, I assure you — I assure you!”

      This was surpassing the utmost limit of impudence! I did not know what to think.

      “Why, you yourself, Foma, said it was musical,” my uncle brought out in confusion and distress.

      “Quite so, but I spoke with a knowledge of the subject, I spoke appropriately; while you …”

      “To be sure, but we spoke with intellect,” put in Yezhevikin, wriggling round Foma Fomitch. “We have just a little intelligence, though we may have to borrow some; just enough to run a couple of government departments and we might manage a third, if need be — that’s all we can boast of!”

      “So it seems I have been talking nonsense again,” said my uncle in conclusion, and he smiled his goodnatured smile.

      “You admit it, anyway,” observed Foma.

      “It’s all right, it’s all right, Foma, I am not angry. I know that you pull me up like a friend, like a relation, like a brothei. I have myself allowed you to do it, begged you to, indeed. It’s a good thing. It’s for my benefit. I thank you for it and will profit by it.”

      My patience was exhausted. All that I had hitherto heard about Foma Fomitch had seemed to me somewhat exaggerated. Now when I saw it all for myself, my astonishment was beyond all bounds. I could not believe my senses; I could not understand such impudence, such insolent domineering on one side and such voluntary slavery, such credulous good nature on the other. Though, indeed, my uncle himself was confused by such impudence. That was evident … I was burning with desire to come to grips with Foma, to do battle with him, to be rude to him in some way, in as startling a fashion as possible — and then let come what may! This idea excited me. I looked for an opportunity, and completely ruined the brim of my hat while I waited for it. But the opportunity did not present itself. Foma absolutely refused to notice me.

      “You are right, perfectly right, Foma,” my uncle went on, doing his utmost to recover himself, and to smoothe over the unpleasantness of what had been said before. “What you say is true, Foma. I thank you for it. One must know the subject before one discusses it. I am sorry! It is not the first time I have been in the same predicament. Only fancy, Sergey, on one occasion I was an examiner … you laugh! But there it is! I really was an examiner, and that was all about it. I was invited to an institution, to be present at an examination, and they set me down together with the examiners, as a sign of respect, there was an empty seat. So, I will own to you, I was frightened, I was positively alarmed, I do not know a single science. What was I to do? I thought that in another minute they would drag me myself to the black board! Well, what then? Nothing happened, it went off all right, I even asked questions myself; who was Noah? On the whole they answered splendidly; then we had lunch and toasted enlightenment in champagne. It was a fine school!”

      Foma Fomitch and Obnoskin burst into roars of laughter.

      “Indeed, I laughed myself afterwards,” cried my uncle, laughing in a most goodnatured way and delighted that general cheerfulness was restored. “Yes, Foma, here goes! I will amuse you all by telling you how I put my foot in it once… . Only fancy, Sergey, we were staying at Krasnogorsk …”

      “Allow me to inquire, Colonel, will you be long in telling your story?” Foma interposed.

      “Oh, Foma! Why, it is the most delightful story, enough to make one split with laughter; you only listen, it is good, it really is good. I’ll tell you how I put my foot in it.”

      “I always listen with pleasure to your stories when they are of that sort,” Obnoskin pronounced, yawning.

      “There is no help for it, we must listen,” Foma decided.

      “But upon my word it is good, Foma, it really is. I want to tell you how I put my foot into it on one occasion, Anfisa Petrovna. You listen too, Sergey, it is an edifying story indeed. We were staying at Krasnogorsk,” my uncle began, beaming with pleasure, talking with nervous haste, and falling into innumerable parentheses as he always did when he was beginning to tell some story for the pleasure of his audience. “As soon as we arrived, the same evening we went to the theatre. There was a first-rate actress, Kuropatkina; she afterwards ran away with the cavalry captain Zvyerkov and did not finish the play she was acting: so they let down the curtain… . This Zvyerkov was a beast, both for drinking and playing cards, and not that he was a drunkard, but simply ready to join his comrades at festive moments. But when he did get really drunk then he forgot everything, where he lived, in what country, and what his name was. Absolutely everything, in fact: but he was a very fine fellow really… . Well, I was sitting in the theatre. In the interval I got up, and I ran across a comrade called Kornouhov. … A unique fellow, I assure you. We had not see each other for six years, it is true. Well, he had stayed in the company and was covered with crosses. I have heard lately — he’s an actual civil councillor; he transferred to the civil service and worked his way up to a high grade… . Well, of course, we were delighted. One thing and another. In the box next to us were three ladies; the one on the left was the ugliest woman in the world… . Afterwards I found out that she was a splendid woman, the mother of a family, and the happiness of her husband… . Well, so I like a fool blurt out to Komouhov: T say, old man, can you tell me who that scarecrow is?”Who do you mean?”Why, that one.”That’s my

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