A Dreary Story

Anton Checkhov

There is Honored Professor Nikolai Stepanovich so-and-so, Privy Councilor and Knight in Russia; he has so many Russian and foreign orders that when he has to wear them, students call him an iconostasis. His acquaintance is the most aristocratic; At least for the last 25 - 30 years in Russia there is not and has not been such a famous scientist with whom he would not be briefly acquainted. Now he has no one to be friends with, but if we talk about the past, then the long list of his glorious friends ends with such names as Pirogov, Kavelin and the poet Nekrasov, who gave him the most sincere and warm friendship. He is a member of all Russian and three foreign universities. And so on and so forth. All this and much more that could be said is what is called by my name.

This name of mine is popular. In Russia it is known to every literate person, and beyond the border it is mentioned from departments with an addition, famous and venerable. It is one of those few happy names, which it is considered a sign of bad taste to scold or mention in vain, in public and in print. That's how it should be. After all, the concept of a famous, richly gifted and undoubtedly useful person is closely connected with my name. I'm hardworking and hardy like a camel, which is important, and talented, which is even more important. Besides, by the way, I am a well-mannered, modest and honest fellow. I never stuck my nose into literature and politics, did not look for popularity in polemics with ignoramuses, did not read speeches either at dinners or at the graves of my comrades... In general, there is not a single stain on my scientist’s name and he has nothing to complain about. It's happy.

The one who bears this name, that is, me, poses as a man of 62 years old, with a bald head, false teeth and an incurable tic. As brilliant and beautiful as my name is, so dim and ugly am I myself. My head and arms are shaking from weakness; the neck, like one Turgenev heroine, looks like the handle of a double bass, the chest is sunken, the back is narrow. When I speak or read, my mouth grimaces to the side; when I smile, my whole face becomes covered with senilely dead wrinkles. There is nothing impressive in my pitiful figure; only when I am sick with tic, I have some special expression, which in everyone, when looking at me, must evoke the stern impressive thought: "Apparently this man will soon die.".

I still read well; As before, I can hold the attention of listeners for two hours. My passion, literary presentation and humor make the shortcomings of my voice almost invisible, but for me it is dry, harsh and melodious, like a prude. I write badly. That piece of my brain that controls my writing ability refused to serve. My memory is weakened, there is not enough consistency in my thoughts, and when I put them on paper, every time it seems to me that I have lost my instinct for their organic connection, the construction is monotonous, the phrase is meager and timid. Often I don’t write what I want; When I write the end, I don’t remember the beginning. Often I forget ordinary words, and I always have to spend a lot of energy to avoid unnecessary phrases and unnecessary introductory sentences in writing - both clearly indicate a decline in mental activity.And it’s great that the simpler the letter, the more painful my tension. Behind a scientific article I feel much freer and smarter than behind a congratulatory letter or memo. One more thing: writing in German or English is easier for me than in Russian.

As for my current lifestyle, first of all I must note the insomnia that I have been suffering from lately. If you asked me: what now constitutes the main and main feature of your existence? I would answer: insomnia. As before, out of habit, at exactly midnight I undress and go to bed. I fall asleep soon, but at the second hour I wake up, and with such a feeling as if I had not slept at all. You have to get out of bed and light a lamp. For an hour or two I walk from corner to corner around the room and look at long-familiar paintings and photographs. When I get tired of walking, I sit down at my table. I sit motionless, not thinking about anything and not feeling any desires; if a book lies in front of me, then mechanically I move it towards me and read it without any interest. So, recently in one night I mechanically read an entire novel under the strange title: "What the Swallow Sang About'. Or, in order to occupy my attention, I force myself to count to a thousand, or I imagine the face of one of my comrades and begin to remember: in what year and under what circumstances did he enter the service? I love listening to sounds. Either my daughter Lisa will quickly say something delirious from me two rooms away, or my wife will pass through the hall with a candle and will certainly drop a box of matches, or a drying cabinet will creak or the burner in the lamp will suddenly hum - and for some reason all these sounds excite me. Either my daughter Lisa will quickly say something delirious from me two rooms away, or my wife will pass through the hall with a candle and will certainly drop a box of matches, or a drying cabinet will creak or the burner in the lamp will suddenly hum - and for some reason all these sounds excite me. Either my daughter Lisa will quickly say something delirious from me two rooms away, or my wife will pass through the hall with a candle and will certainly drop a box of matches, or a drying cabinet will creak or the burner in the lamp will suddenly hum - and for some reason all these sounds excite me.

Not sleeping at night means being aware of myself as abnormal every minute, and therefore I look forward to the morning and day when I have the right not to sleep. A lot of agonizing time passes before a rooster crows in the yard. This is my first evangelist. As soon as he screams, I already know that in an hour the doorman will wake up below and, coughing angrily, for some reason will go up the stairs. And then the air outside the windows will begin to fade little by little, voices will be heard on the street...

My day begins with the arrival of my wife. She comes in to me in a skirt, unkempt, but already washed, smelling of floral cologne, and looking as if she had entered by accident, and every time she says the same thing:

-- Sorry, I'll just be a minute... Weren't you sleeping again?

Then she puts out the lamp, sits down near the table and begins to speak. I am not a prophet, but I know in advance what will be discussed. Every morning it's the same. Usually, after alarming questions about my health, she suddenly remembers our son, an officer serving in Warsaw. After the twentieth of each month, we send him 50 rubles - this is mainly the topic for our conversation.

"of course, it’s hard for us," the wife sighs, "but until he finally gets back on his feet, we are obliged to help him. The boy is on the other side, the salary is small... However, if you want, next month we will send him not fifty, but forty. What do you think?

Daily experience could convince my wife that expenses do not become less because we often talk about them, but my wife does not recognize the experience and carefully talks every morning about our officer and about the fact that bread, thank God, has become cheaper, and sugar has risen in price by two kopecks - and all this in such a tone as if he was telling me the news.

I listen, automatically assent, and probably because I didn’t sleep at night, strange, unnecessary thoughts take over me. I look at my wife and am surprised like a child. In bewilderment, I ask myself: was this old, very plump, clumsy woman, with a stupid expression of petty care and fear of a piece of bread, with a look, tired of constant thoughts of debt and need, able to talk only about expenses and smile only at cheapness - was this woman was once the same thin Varya whom I passionately loved for her good, clear mind, for her pure soul, beauty and, like Othello Desdemona, for "compassion" for my science? Is this really the same wife Varya who once gave birth to my son?

I intently peer into the face of a damp, clumsy old woman, looking for my Varya in her, but from the past she has only retained the fear for my health, and even the manner of calling my salary our salary, my hat our hat. It pains me to look at her, and to console her even a little, I allow her to say anything, and I even remain silent when she unfairly judges people or scolds me for not practicing or publishing textbooks.

Our conversation always ends the same way. My wife suddenly remembers that I haven’t drunk tea yet and gets scared.

"Why am I sitting?" she says, getting up. - The samovar has been on the table for a long time, and I’m chatting here. How unconscious I have become, Lord!

She quickly walks and stops at the door to say

"we owe Yegor five months in advance.". Do you know this? You shouldn't let servants pay, as I've said so many times! It is much easier to pay ten rubles in a month than in five months - fifty!

Coming out the door, she stops again and says:

"I don’t feel sorry for anyone more than our poor Lisa.". The girl studies at the conservatory, is constantly in good company, and is dressed God knows how. Such a fur coat that it’s a shame to show up outside. If she were someone else, that would be nothing, but everyone knows that her father is a famous professor, a privy councilor!

And, reproaching me with my name and rank, she finally leaves. This is how my day begins. It continues no better.

When I drink tea, my Lisa comes in, wearing a fur coat, a hat and notes, already quite ready to go to the conservatory. She is 22 years old. She looks younger, good-looking and a little like my wife in her youth. She kisses me tenderly on the temple and on the hand and says

-- Hello, daddy. Are you healthy?

As a child, she loved ice cream very much, and I often had to take her to the pastry shop. Ice cream was a measure of everything beautiful for her. If she wanted to praise me, she would say: "You, dad, are creamy.". One finger was called pistachio, another cream, the third raspberry, etc. Usually, when she came to me in the morning to say hello, I sat her on my lap and, kissing her fingers, said:

-- Creamy... pistachio... lemon...

And now, from old memory, I kiss Lisa’s fingers and mutter: "pistachio... creamy... lemon...", but it turns out not the same for me at all. I'm cold as ice cream and I'm ashamed. When my daughter comes to me and touches my temple with her lips, I shudder, a bee stings me at the temple, smile intensely and turn my face away. Since I have been suffering from insomnia, the question has been sitting like a nail in my brain: my daughter often sees how I, an old man, a famous person, blush painfully because I owe a lackey; she sees how often caring for small debts makes me quit my job and walk from corner to corner for hours and think, but why didn’t she ever come to me secretly from her mother and whisper: "Father, here are my watches, bracelets, earrings, dresses... Pawn all this, do you need money..."? Why is she, seeing like me and my motherhaving succumbed to a false feeling, we try to hide our poverty from people, why won’t she give up the expensive pleasure of making music? I would not accept watches, bracelets, or sacrifices, God bless me - this is not what I need.

By the way, I also remember about my son, a Warsaw officer. He is a smart, honest and sober person. But this is not enough for me. I think if I had an old father and if I knew that he has moments when he is ashamed of his poverty, then I would give the officer’s position to someone else, and I myself would be hired as a worker. Thoughts like this about children poison me. What are they for? Only a narrow or embittered person can harbor an evil feeling against ordinary people for not being heroes. But enough about that.

At a quarter to ten I need to go to my cute boys to give a lecture. I get dressed and walk along a road that has been familiar to me for 30 years and has its own history for me. Here is a large gray house with a pharmacy; there once stood a small house here, and there was a porter's room in it; In this porter room I was thinking about my dissertation and wrote my first love letter to Varya. He wrote in pencil, on a sheet with the title "Historia morbi" {Case history (Latin).}. Here is a grocery store; once a Jew ran it, selling me cigarettes on credit, then a fat woman who loved students because "each of them has a mother"; now sits a red-haired merchant, a very indifferent man, drinking tea from a copper teapot. And here are the gloomy, long-unrenovated university gates; a bored janitor in a sheepskin coat, a broom, piles of snow... For a fresh boy,coming from the provinces and imagining that the temple of science is truly a temple, such a gate cannot make a healthy impression. In general, the dilapidation of university buildings, the gloom of corridors, the soot of walls, lack of light, the dull appearance of steps, hangers and benches in the history of Russian pessimism occupy one of the first places for a number of predisposing reasons... Here is our garden. Since I was a student, he doesn't seem to have gotten any better or worse. I don't like him. It would be much smarter if, instead of consumptive linden trees, yellow acacia and rare, trimmed lilacs, tall pines and good oaks grew here. A student, whose mood is mostly created by the situation, at every step, where he studies, must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth. that the temple of science is truly a temple, such a gate cannot make a healthy impression. In general, the dilapidation of university buildings, the gloom of corridors, the soot of walls, lack of light, the dull appearance of steps, hangers and benches in the history of Russian pessimism occupy one of the first places for a number of predisposing reasons... Here is our garden. Since I was a student, he doesn't seem to have gotten any better or worse. I don't like him. It would be much smarter if, instead of consumptive linden trees, yellow acacia and rare, trimmed lilacs, tall pines and good oaks grew here. A student, whose mood is mostly created by the situation, at every step, where he studies, must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth. that the temple of science is truly a temple, such a gate cannot make a healthy impression. In general, the dilapidation of university buildings, the gloom of corridors, the soot of walls, lack of light, the dull appearance of steps, hangers and benches in the history of Russian pessimism occupy one of the first places for a number of predisposing reasons... Here is our garden. Since I was a student, he doesn't seem to have gotten any better or worse. I don't like him. It would be much smarter if, instead of consumptive linden trees, yellow acacia and rare, trimmed lilacs, tall pines and good oaks grew here. A student, whose mood is mostly created by the situation, at every step, where he studies, must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth. such a gate cannot make a healthy impression. In general, the dilapidation of university buildings, the gloom of corridors, the soot of walls, lack of light, the dull appearance of steps, hangers and benches in the history of Russian pessimism occupy one of the first places for a number of predisposing reasons... Here is our garden. Since I was a student, he doesn't seem to have gotten any better or worse. I don't like him. It would be much smarter if, instead of consumptive linden trees, yellow acacia and rare, trimmed lilacs, tall pines and good oaks grew here. A student, whose mood is mostly created by the situation, at every step, where he studies, must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth. such a gate cannot make a healthy impression. In general, the dilapidation of university buildings, the gloom of corridors, the soot of walls, lack of light, the dull appearance of steps, hangers and benches in the history of Russian pessimism occupy one of the first places for a number of predisposing reasons... Here is our garden. Since I was a student, he doesn't seem to have gotten any better or worse. I don't like him. It would be much smarter if, instead of consumptive linden trees, yellow acacia and rare, trimmed lilacs, tall pines and good oaks grew here. A student, whose mood is mostly created by the situation, at every step, where he studies, must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth. the gloominess of corridors, the soot of walls, lack of light, the dull appearance of steps, hangers and benches in the history of Russian pessimism occupy one of the first places for a number of predisposing reasons... Here is our garden. Since I was a student, he doesn't seem to have gotten any better or worse. I don't like him. It would be much smarter if, instead of consumptive linden trees, yellow acacia and rare, trimmed lilacs, tall pines and good oaks grew here. A student, whose mood is mostly created by the situation, at every step, where he studies, must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth. the gloominess of corridors, the soot of walls, lack of light, the dull appearance of steps, hangers and benches in the history of Russian pessimism occupy one of the first places for a number of predisposing reasons... Here is our garden. Since I was a student, he doesn't seem to have gotten any better or worse. I don't like him. It would be much smarter if, instead of consumptive linden trees, yellow acacia and rare, trimmed lilacs, tall pines and good oaks grew here. A student, whose mood is mostly created by the situation, at every step, where he studies, must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth. Here is our garden. Since I was a student, he doesn't seem to have gotten any better or worse. I don't like him. It would be much smarter if, instead of consumptive linden trees, yellow acacia and rare, trimmed lilacs, tall pines and good oaks grew here. A student, whose mood is mostly created by the situation, at every step, where he studies, must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth. Here is our garden. Since I was a student, he doesn't seem to have gotten any better or worse. I don't like him. It would be much smarter if, instead of consumptive linden trees, yellow acacia and rare, trimmed lilacs, tall pines and good oaks grew here. A student, whose mood is mostly created by the situation, at every step, where he studies, must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth. he must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth. he must see in front of him only the high, strong and graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors upholstered in torn oilcloth.

When I approach my porch, the door swings open and I am met by my old colleague, peer and namesake doorman Nikolai. Letting me in, he quacks and says

-- Frost, your excellency!

Or if my fur coat is wet, then:

-- Rain, Your Excellency!

Then he runs ahead of me and opens all the doors in my path. In the office, he carefully takes off my fur coat and at this time manages to tell me some university news. Thanks to a short acquaintance that exists between all the university doormen and watchmen, he knows everything that happens in the four faculties, in the office, in the rector’s office, in the library. What does he not know? When we have the topic of the day, for example, the resignation of the rector or dean, then I hear him, talking with young watchmen, name candidates and immediately explain that such and such will not be approved by the minister, such and such will refuse, then goes into fantastic details about some mysterious papers received in the office, about a secret conversation that the minister allegedly had with a trustee, etc. If we exclude these details,in general, he almost always turns out to be right. The characteristics he makes to each of the candidates are unique, but also true. If you need to find out in what year someone defended their dissertation, entered the service, retired or died, then call on the enormous memory of this soldier to your aid, and he will not only tell you the year, month and date, but will also tell you details that accompanied this or that circumstance. Only those who love can remember this way. which accompanied this or that circumstance. Only those who love can remember this way. which accompanied this or that circumstance. Only those who love can remember this way.

He is the keeper of university lore. From his Swiss predecessors he inherited many legends from university life, added to this wealth a lot of his goods gained during his service, and if you like, he will tell you many long and short stories. He can talk about extraordinary sages who knew everything, about wonderful workers who did not sleep for weeks, about numerous martyrs and victims of science; good triumphs over evil in him, the weak always defeats the strong, the wise fool, the modest proud, the young old... There is no need to take all these legends and fables at face value, but strain them and you will have what you need on the filter: our good traditions and the names of true heroes recognized by everyone.

In our society, all information about the world of scientists is limited to anecdotes about the extraordinary absent-mindedness of old professors and two or three witticisms that are attributed either to Gruber, or to me, or to Babukhin. This is not enough for an educated society. If it loved science, scientists and students as much as Nikolai, then his literature would have long ago had entire epics, legends and lives, which, unfortunately, it does not have now.

Having told me the news, Nikolai gives his face a stern expression, and we begin a business conversation. If at this time someone else had listened to Nikolai freely handling terminology, then perhaps he might have thought that he was a scientist disguised as a soldier. By the way, talk about the learning of university watchmen is greatly exaggerated. True, Nikolai knows more than a hundred Latin names, knows how to assemble a skeleton, sometimes prepare a drug, make students laugh with some long scientific quote, but, for example, the simple theory of blood circulation is still as dark for him as it was 20 years ago.

At the table in the office, bent low over a book or drug, sits my prosector Pyotr Ignatievich, a hardworking, modest, but untalented man, about 35 years old, already bald and with a big belly. He works from morning to night, reads a lot, remembers everything he has read very well - and in this regard he is not a man, but gold; otherwise, among other things, he is a draft horse, or, as they say, a stupid scientist. The characteristic features of a draft horse that distinguish him from talent are as follows: his horizons are narrow and sharply limited by his specialty; outside his specialty he is naive, like a child. I remember one morning I walked into the office and said:

--Imagine what a misfortune! They say Skobelev died.

Nikolai crossed himself, and Pyotr Ignatievich turned to me and asked:

--What kind of Skobelev is this?

Another time - it was a little earlier - I announced that Professor Perov had died. Dear Pyotr Ignatievich asked:

--And what did he read?

It seems that he is on a drinking binge under Patti’s very ear, if hordes of Chinese attack Russia, if an earthquake occurs, he will not move a single member and will calmly look with his narrowed eye through his microscope. In a word, he doesn’t care about Hecuba. I would give it dearly to watch this cracker sleep with his wife.

Another trait: a fanatical belief in the infallibility of science and mainly everything that the Germans write. He is confident in himself, in his drugs, knows the purpose of life and is completely unfamiliar with the doubts and disappointments that make his talents gray. Slave worship of authority and lack of need to think independently. It is difficult to dissuade him of anything; it is impossible to argue with him. Let me argue with a person who is deeply convinced that the best science is medicine, the best people are doctors, the best traditions are medical. Only one tradition has survived from the bad medical past - the white tie that doctors now wear; for a scientist and an educated person in general, only university-wide traditions can exist, without any division into medical, legal, etcbut it is difficult for Pyotr Ignatievich to agree with this, and he is ready to argue with you until the last judgment.

Its future seems clear to me. Throughout his life, he will prepare several hundred preparations of extraordinary purity, write many dry, very decent abstracts, make a dozen conscientious translations, but will not invent gunpowder. Gunpowder requires imagination, ingenuity, and the ability to guess, but Pyotr Ignatievich has nothing like that. In short, it is not the master in science, but the worker.

Me, Pyotr Ignatievich and Nikolai speak in a low voice. We feel a little uneasy. You feel something special when the audience is buzzing outside the door. For 30 years I have not been used to this feeling and experience it every morning. I nervously button my frock coat, ask Nikolai unnecessary questions, and get angry... It's like I'm a coward, but it's not cowardice, but something else that I can neither name nor describe.

Needlessly, I look at my watch and say

-- Well? We have to go.

And we walk in this order: Nikolai is walking in front with drugs or atlases, I am behind him, and a draft horse is walking behind me, modestly lowering its head; or, if necessary, a corpse is carried on a stretcher in front, Nikolai is following the corpse, etc. When I appear, the students get up, then sit down, and the sound of the sea suddenly subsides. Calm is coming.

I know what I'm going to read about, but I don't know how I'm going to read, where I'm going to start and how I'm going to end. There is not a single ready-made phrase in my head. But as soon as I look around the audience (it was built by my amphitheater) and say the stereotypical "in the last lecture we stopped at...", phrases fly out of my soul in a long line and - - the province went to write! I speak uncontrollably quickly, passionately and there seems to be no force that could interrupt the flow of my speech. To read well, that is, not boring and with benefit for listeners, you need, in addition to talent, to have more skill and experience, you need to have the clearest idea of your abilities, of those to whom you read, and of what constitutes the subject of your speech. In addition, you need to be a person on your mind, watch vigilantly and not lose your field of vision for a single second.

A good conductor, conveying the composer’s thoughts, does twenty things at once: reads the score, waves his baton, watches the singer, moves towards the drum, the horn, etc. It's the same with me when I read. Before me are one and a half hundred faces, unlike one another, and three hundred eyes, looking straight into my face. My goal is to defeat this multi-headed hydra. If every minute I read, I have a clear idea of the degree of her attention and the power of understanding, then she is in my power. My other opponent sits within me. This is an endless variety of forms, phenomena and laws and a variety of thoughts conditioned by them. Every minute I must have the dexterity to snatch the most important and necessary things from this enormous material and, as quickly as my speech flows, put my thought into this formwhich would be accessible to the understanding of the hydra and excite its attention, and one must vigilantly ensure that thoughts are transmitted not as they accumulate, but in a certain order necessary for the correct layout of the picture that I want to draw. Next, I try to ensure that my speech is literary, the definitions are short and precise, the phrase is perhaps simple and beautiful. Every minute I have to put myself to rest and remember that I only have an hour and forty minutes at my disposal. In a word, there is a lot of work. At the same time, you have to pretend to be a scientist, a teacher, and a speaker, and it’s bad if the speaker beats the teacher and the scientist in you, or vice versa. for my speech to be literary, the definitions to be short and precise, the phrase is perhaps simple and beautiful. Every minute I have to put myself to rest and remember that I only have an hour and forty minutes at my disposal. In a word, there is a lot of work. At the same time, you have to pretend to be a scientist, a teacher, and a speaker, and it’s bad if the speaker beats the teacher and the scientist in you, or vice versa. for my speech to be literary, the definitions to be short and precise, the phrase is perhaps simple and beautiful. Every minute I have to put myself to rest and remember that I only have an hour and forty minutes at my disposal. In a word, there is a lot of work. At the same time, you have to pretend to be a scientist, a teacher, and a speaker, and it’s bad if the speaker beats the teacher and the scientist in you, or vice versa.

You read a quarter, half an hour and then you notice that students begin to look at the ceiling, at Pyotr Ignatievich, one will climb behind the scarf, another will sit comfortably, the third will smile at his thoughts... This means that attention is tired. Action needs to be taken. Taking advantage of the first opportunity, I say some pun. All one and a half hundred faces smile widely, their eyes sparkle cheerfully, and the roar of the sea can be heard for a short time... I'm laughing too. The attention has been refreshed and I can continue.

No sport, no entertainment and games have ever given me such pleasure as lecturing. Only at the lecture could I devote myself entirely to passion and understand that inspiration is not an invention of poets, but actually exists. And I think Hercules, after the most piquant of his exploits, did not feel such sweet exhaustion as I experienced every time after lectures.

This was before. Now in lectures I experience only torment. Not even half an hour passes before I begin to feel invincible weakness in my legs and shoulders; I sit down in a chair, but I’m not used to reading while sitting; after a minute I get up, continue standing, then sit down again. My mouth is drying, my voice is wheezing, my head is spinning... To hide my condition from listeners, I drink water every now and then, cough, often blow my nose, as if a runny nose is bothering me, say puns inappropriately and in the end announce a break earlier than I should. But mostly I'm ashamed.

My conscience and mind tell me that the best thing I could do now is give the boys a farewell lecture, say the last word to them, bless them and give my place to a man who is younger and stronger than me. But let God judge me, I don’t have the courage to act according to my conscience.

Unfortunately, I am not a philosopher or a theologian. I know very well that I will live no more than six months; It would seem that now I should be most interested in questions about the afterlife and the visions that will attend my grave dream. But for some reason my soul does not want to know these questions, although the mind is aware of their importance. Just as 20 - 30 years ago, so now, before my death, I am interested in science alone. Taking my last breath, I will still believe that science is the most important, most beautiful and necessary thing in human life, that it has always been and will be the highest manifestation of love, and that only with it will man defeat nature and himself. This faith may be naive and unfair in its foundation, but it is not my fault that I believe this way and not otherwise; I cannot conquer this faith in myself.

But that's not the point. I just ask you to condescend to my weakness and understand that to tear away from the pulpit and students a person who is more interested in the fate of the bone marrow than the ultimate goal of the universe is tantamount to being taken and slaughtered in a coffin without waiting for him to die.

From insomnia and due to a tense struggle with increasing weakness, something strange happens to me. In the middle of the lecture, tears suddenly come to my throat, my eyes begin to itch, and I feel a passionate, hysterical desire to stretch my arms forward and complain loudly. I want to shout in a loud voice that fate has sentenced me, a famous person, to death, that in just six months someone else will be in charge of the audience here. I want to shout that I am poisoned; new thoughts like I did not know before have poisoned the last days of my life and continue to sting my brain like mosquitoes. And at this time my situation seems so terrible that I want all my listeners to be horrified, jump up from their seats and, in panic, with a desperate cry, rush to the exit.

It's not easy to experience moments like this.

II

After the lecture, I sit at home and work. I read magazines, dissertations or prepare for the next lecture, sometimes I write something. I work intermittently because I have to receive visitors.

A call is heard. It was a friend who came to talk about business. He comes in to me with a hat, with a stick, and as he holds out both to me, he says

--I'll be a minute, a minute! Sit, collegea! Just two words!

First of all, we try to show each other that we are both unusually polite and very happy to see each other. I sit him in a chair, and he sits me down; at the same time, we gently stroke each other’s waists, touch buttons, and it’s as if we are feeling each other and are afraid of getting burned. We both laugh, although we don’t say anything funny. Sitting down, we bend our heads towards each other and begin to speak in a low voice. No matter how cordially we are disposed towards each other, we cannot, so as not to gild our speech with all sorts of Chinese, like: "you deigned to rightly note," or "as I already had the honor to tell you," we cannot, so as not to laugh, if any of us will erase, at least unsuccessfully. Having finished talking about business, my friend impetuously stands up and, waving his hat towards my work, begins to say goodbye.We feel each other again and laugh. I accompany you to the front door; here I help a friend put on a fur coat, but he avoids this high honor in every possible way. Then, when Yegor opens the door, my friend assures me that I will catch a cold, and I pretend that I am ready to follow him even to the street. And when I finally return to my office, my face still continues to smile, perhaps out of inertia.

A little later, another call. Someone enters the front room, takes a long time to undress and coughs. Egor reports that a student has arrived. I say: ask. A minute later a young man of pleasant appearance comes in to see me. It’s been a year since we’ve been in a strained relationship: he answers my exams disgustingly, and I give him only a few. I recruit about seven such fellows every year, whom I, in student parlance, drive away or fail. Those of them who do not pass the exam due to inability or illness usually bear their cross patiently and do not bargain with me; Only sanguines, broad natures, for whom delays in exams spoil their appetite and prevent them from carefully attending the opera, bargain and come to my house. I will be the first to make peace, and I will drive the second for a whole year.

"Sit down", I say to the guest. -What do you say?

"I'm sorry, professor, for bothering me..." he begins, stuttering and not looking me in the face. -I wouldn't dare bother you if it weren't for... I've taken your exam five times already and... and cut it off. Please, please give me a satisfactory rating because...

The argument that all lazy people give in their favor is always the same: they stood up perfectly in all subjects and cut only on mine, and this is all the more surprising since they always studied my subject very hard and know it perfectly; they were cut thanks to some incomprehensible misunderstanding.

"Excuse me, my friend", I say to the guest, "I cannot give you a satisfactory rating". Go read more lectures and come. Then we'll see.

Pause. I want to torture a student a little because he loves beer and opera more than science, and I say with a sigh:

--I think the best thing you can do now is - leave the Faculty of Medicine completely. If, given your abilities, you cannot pass the exam, then, obviously, you have neither the desire nor the calling to be a doctor.

The sanguine's face stretches out.

"sorry, professor", he grins, "but that would be strange of me, to say the least". Study for five years and suddenly... leave!

-- Well, yes! It’s better to lose five years for nothing than to then spend your whole life doing something you don’t like.

But immediately I feel sorry for him, and I hasten to say

"however, as you know.". So, read a little more and come.

"When?" asks the lazy man, dully.

-- Whenever you want. Even tomorrow.

And in his kind eyes I read: "You can come, but you brute will drive me away again!"

"of course", I say, "you will not become a scholar because you will be examined by me fifteen more times, but it will cultivate character in you". And thank you for that.

There is silence. I get up and wait for the guest to leave, and he stands, looks at the window, fiddles with his goatee and thinks. It's getting boring.

The sanguine's voice is pleasant, juicy, his eyes are smart, mocking, his face is complacent, somewhat rumpled from frequent drinking of beer and lying on the sofa for a long time; Apparently, he could tell me a lot of interesting things about opera, about his love affairs, about the comrades he loves, but, unfortunately, it is not customary to talk about this. And I would willingly listen.

-- Professor! I give you my word of honor that if you give me a satisfactory rating, then I...

As soon as it comes to my word of honor, I wave my arms and sit down at the table. The student thinks for another minute and says sadly:

--In that case, goodbye... Sorry.

--Goodbye, my friend. Good health.

He hesitantly goes to the hall, dresses slowly there and, going outside, probably thinks for a long time again; Having come up with nothing but the "old devil" at my address, he goes to a bad restaurant to drink beer and have lunch, and then to his home to sleep. Peace be upon your dust, honest worker!

Third call. A young doctor enters in a new black pair, wearing gold glasses and, of course, a white tie. Recommended. Please sit down and ask anything. Not without excitement, the young priest of science begins to tell me that this year he passed the doctoral exam and that now all he can do is write a dissertation. He would like to work for me, under my leadership, and I would greatly oblige him if I gave him a topic for a dissertation.

"I'm very glad to be useful, colleague", I say, "but let's first sing about what a dissertation is". By this word it is customary to mean an essay that is a product of independent creativity. Isn't it? An essay written on someone else’s topic and under someone else’s guidance is called differently...

The doctoral student is silent. I burst into flames and jump up.

"- Why are you all coming to me, I don’t understand?" - I shout angrily. - Do I have a bench, or what? I don't trade topics! For the first thousand times, I ask you all to leave me alone! Sorry for the indelicacy, but I'm finally tired of it!

The doctoral student is silent, and only light paint protrudes near his cheekbones. His face expresses deep respect for my famous name and learning, and from his eyes I see that he despises my voice, my pitiful figure, and nervous gestures. In my anger, I present myself to him as an eccentric.

"I don't have a shop!" - I'm angry. - And amazing thing! Why don't you want to be independent? Why are you so disgusted by freedom?

I talk a lot, but he remains silent. In the end, little by little I calm down and, of course, give up. The doctoral student will receive from me a topic that is worthless, write a dissertation that no one needs under my supervision, withstand a boring debate with dignity and receive an academic degree that he does not need.

Calls can follow one after another endlessly, but I will limit myself here to only four. The fourth bell rings and I hear familiar footsteps, the rustle of a dress, a sweet voice...

18 years ago, my fellow ophthalmologist died and left behind his seven-year-old daughter Katya and sixty thousand money. In his will, he appointed me guardian. Until the age of ten, Katya lived in my family, then she was sent to college and lived with me only in the summer months, during the holidays. I had no time to raise her, I only observed her in fits and starts, and therefore I can say very little about her childhood.

The first thing I remember and love from memories is the extraordinary gullibility with which she entered my house, was treated by doctors and which always shone on her face. It happened that she sat somewhere on the sidelines with her cheek tied and certainly looked at something with attention; Whether at this time she sees how I write and leaf through books, or how her wife is busy, or how the cook peels potatoes in the kitchen, or how the dog plays, her eyes always invariably expressed the same thing, namely: "Everything that is done in this world, everything is beautiful and smart.". She was curious and loved talking to me. It happened that he sat at the table opposite me, watched my movements and asked questions. She is interested in knowing what I read, what I do at university, whether I am afraid of corpses, where I put my salary.

"Do students fight at university?" she asks.

-- They're fighting, honey.

--And you're bringing them to their knees?

-- I bet.

And she found it funny that students were fighting and that I was putting them on their knees, and she laughed. He was a meek, patient and kind child. Often I have seen something taken away from her, punished in vain, or not satisfied her curiosity; at this time, sadness was mixed with the constant expression of gullibility on her face - and that’s all. I didn’t know how to stand up for her, but only when I saw sadness did I have a desire to attract her to me and feel sorry for her in the tone of an old nanny: "My dear orphan!"

I also remember that she loved to dress well and show off her spirits. In this regard, she was like me. I also love beautiful clothes and good perfume.

I regret that I did not have the time or desire to trace the beginning and development of the passion that already possessed Kateya when she was 14-15 years old. I'm talking about her passionate love for the theater. When she came to us from the institute on vacation and lived with us, she did not talk about anything with such pleasure and with such fervor as about plays and actors. With her constant conversations about the theater, she tired us. Her wife and children did not listen to her. I alone lacked the courage to refuse her attention. When she had a desire to share her delights, she came into my office and said in a pleading tone:

-- Nikolai Stepanych, let me talk to you about the theater!

I pointed at her watch and said

--Give you half an hour. Get started.

Later she began to bring with her dozens of portraits of actors and actresses in which she prayed; then I tried to participate in amateur performances several times and eventually, when I finished the course, she announced to me that she was born to be an actress.

I never shared Katya’s theatrical hobbies. In my opinion, if a play is good, then for it to make the proper impression, there is no need to bother the actors: you can limit yourself to just reading. If the play is bad, then no play will make it good.

When I was young, I often visited the theater, and now twice a year my family takes a box and takes me to "ventilate.". Of course, this is not enough to have the right to judge the theater, but I will say little about it. In my opinion, the theater has not become better than it was 30-40 years ago. As before, I can’t find a glass of clean water either in the theater corridors or in the foyer. As before, banditiers fine me two-hryvnia for my fur coat, although there is nothing reprehensible in wearing a warm dress in winter. As before, during intermissions, music plays unnecessarily, adding something new and unsolicited to the impression received from the play. Men still go to the buffet to drink alcohol during intermissions. If you can’t see progress in the little things, then in vain would I look for it in the big ones. When an actor,entangled from head to toe in theatrical traditions and prejudices, he tries to read a simple, ordinary monologue "To be or not to be" not just, but for some reason certainly with hissing and convulsions throughout his body, or when he tries to convince me at all costs that Chatsky, who talks a lot with fools and loves fools, is a very smart person and that "Woe from Wit" is not a boring play then the stage smells of the same routine on me that was boring to me 40 years ago, when I was treated to classic howls and beating on the peaches. And every time I leave the theater more conservative than when I enter there. that Chatsky, who talks a lot with fools and loves fools, is a very smart person and that "Woe from Wit" is not a boring play, then the stage smells of the same routine on me that was boring to me 40 years ago, when I was treated to classic howls and beating on the peaches. And every time I leave the theater more conservative than when I enter there. that Chatsky, who talks a lot with fools and loves fools, is a very smart person and that "Woe from Wit" is not a boring play, then the stage smells of the same routine on me that was boring to me 40 years ago, when I was treated to classic howls and beating on the peaches. And every time I leave the theater more conservative than when I enter there.

The sentimental and gullible crowd can be convinced that the theater in its real form is a school. But whoever is familiar with the school in its true sense cannot be caught with this bait. I don’t know what will happen in 50 - 100 years, but under current conditions, theater can only serve as entertainment. But entertainment is too expensive to continue using. It takes away from the state thousands of young, healthy and talented men and women who, if they had not devoted themselves to the theater, could have been good doctors, farmers, teachers, officers; it takes away the evening hours from the public - the best time for mental work and friendly conversations. Not to mention the monetary costs and moral losses that the viewer suffers when he sees incorrectly interpreted murder, adultery or slander on stage.

Katya had a completely different opinion. She assured me that theater, even in its real form, is higher than audiences, higher than books, higher than everything in the world. Theater is a force that unites all the arts, and actors are missionaries. No art and no science individually is able to act so strongly and so faithfully on the human soul as the stage, and it is not for nothing that a medium-sized actor enjoys much more popularity in the state than the best scientist or artist. And no public activity can bring such pleasure and satisfaction as stage activity.

And one fine day Katya joined the troupe and, it seems, left for Ufa, taking with her a lot of money, a darkness of bright hopes and aristocratic views on the matter.

Her first letters from the road were amazing. I read them and was simply amazed how these small pieces of paper could contain so much youth, spiritual purity, holy naivety and at the same time subtle, sensible judgments that could do honor to a good man's mind. Volga, nature, the cities she visited, comrades, she did not describe her successes and failures, but sang; every line breathed the gullibility that I was used to seeing on her face - and with all this there were a lot of grammatical errors, and there were almost no punctuation marks at all.

Less than six months later, I received a highly poetic and enthusiastic letter, which began with the words: "I fell in love.". Attached to this letter was a photograph showing a young man with a shaved face, a wide-brimmed hat and a blanket thrown over his shoulder. The letters that followed were still magnificent, but punctuation marks appeared in them, grammatical errors disappeared and they smelled strongly of a man. Katya began to write to me that it would be nice to build a large theater somewhere on the Volga, nothing less than on shares, and to attract rich merchants and shipowners to this enterprise; there would be a lot of money, the fees would be huge, the actors would play on the terms of partnership... Maybe all this is really good, but it seems to me that such fabrications can only come from a man’s head.

Be that as it may, for one and a half to two years, apparently, everything was fine: Katya loved, believed in her work and was happy; but then in the letters I began to notice obvious signs of decline. It started with Katya complaining to me about her comrades - this is the first and most ominous symptom; if a young scientist or writer begins his career by bitterly complaining about scientists or writers, then this means that he is already tired and unfit for work. Katya wrote to me that her comrades do not attend rehearsals and never know the roles; in staging ridiculous plays and in the manner of holding themselves on stage, each of them shows complete disrespect for the audience; in the interests of gathering, which is all they talk about, dramatic actresses are humiliated to the point of singing chansonettes, and tragedians sing couplets in which they laugh at horned husbands and at the pregnancy of unfaithful wives, etc.In general, we must be amazed at how this provincial matter has not yet perished and how it can rest on such a thin and rotten vein.

In response, I sent Katya a long and, frankly, very boring letter. By the way, I wrote to her: "I often had to talk with old actors, the noblest people who gave me their disposition; from conversations with them I could understand that their activities are guided not so much by their own reason and freedom, but by fashion and the mood of society; the best of them had to play in their lifetime in tragedy, and in operetta, and in Parisian farces, and in extravaganzas, and always seemed the same to them that they followed the straight path and brought benefits. This means, as you can see, the cause of evil must be sought not in the actors, but deeper, in art itself and in the relationship of the entire society to it'. This letter of mine only irritated Katya. She answered me: "You and I sing from different operas. I didn’t write to you about the noblest people who gave you their favorand about the gang of scoundrels who have nothing to do with nobility. They are a herd of wild people who have only been on stage because they would not have been accepted anywhere else, and who only call themselves entertainers because they are insolent. Not a single talent, but a lot of mediocrity, drunkards, intriguers, gossips. I can’t tell you how bitter it is for me that the art that I love so much has fallen into the hands of people I hate; It’s bitter that the best people see evil only from afar, don’t want to come closer and, instead of standing up, write commonplaces and morals that no one needs in a ponderous syllable..." and so on, everything like that. Not a single talent, but a lot of mediocrity, drunkards, intriguers, gossips. I can’t tell you how bitter it is for me that the art that I love so much has fallen into the hands of people I hate; It’s bitter that the best people see evil only from afar, don’t want to come closer and, instead of standing up, write commonplaces and morals that no one needs in a ponderous syllable..." and so on, everything like that. Not a single talent, but a lot of mediocrity, drunkards, intriguers, gossips. I can’t tell you how bitter it is for me that the art that I love so much has fallen into the hands of people I hate; It’s bitter that the best people see evil only from afar, don’t want to come closer and, instead of standing up, write commonplaces and morals that no one needs in a ponderous syllable..." and so on, everything like that.

A little more time passed and I received this letter: "I am inhumanly deceived. I can't live longer. Manage my money as you find necessary. I loved you as a father and my only friend. Pardon me."

It turned out that he also belonged to the "herd of wild people.". Subsequently, from some hints I could guess that there was an attempted suicide. It seems Katya tried to get poisoned. One must think that she was later seriously ill, since I received the next letter from Yalta, where, in all likelihood, the doctors sent her. Her last letter to me contained a request to send her a thousand rubles to Yalta as soon as possible and it ended like this: "Sorry that the letter is so gloomy. Yesterday I buried my child'. After living in Crimea for about a year, she returned home.

She traveled for about four years, and in all these four years, I must admit, I played a rather unenviable and strange role towards her. When earlier she announced to me that she was becoming an actress, and then wrote to me about her love, when she was periodically overcome by the spirit of extravagance and every now and then, at her request, I had to send her either a thousand or two rubles, when she wrote to me about my intention to die and then about the death of the child, then each time I was lost and all my participation in her fate was expressed only in this that I thought a lot and wrote long, boring letters that I might not have written at all. Meanwhile, I replaced her own father and loved her like a daughter!

Now Katya lives half a mile from me. She hired a five-room apartment and furnished quite comfortably and with her usual taste. If someone had undertaken to paint her setting, the prevailing mood in the picture would have been laziness. For a lazy body - soft couches, soft stools, for lazy legs - carpets, for lazy vision - moulted, dull or matte colors; for the lazy soul - an abundance on the walls of cheap fans and small paintings, in which originality prevails over content, an excess of tables and shelves lined with completely unnecessary and priceless things, shapeless scraps instead of curtains... All this, together with the fear of bright colors, symmetry and space, in addition to mental laziness, also indicates a distortion of natural taste. All day long Katya lies on the couch and reads booksmostly novels and short stories. She only leaves the house once a day, in the afternoon, to see me.

I’m working, and Katya is sitting not far from me on the sofa, silent and wrapped in a shawl, as if she were cold. Whether it's because I like her or because I'm used to her frequent visits when she was still a girl, her presence doesn't stop me from concentrating. Occasionally I automatically ask her some question, she gives a very short answer; or, in order to rest for a minute, I turn to her and watch her, thoughtfully, look through some medical journal or newspaper. And at this time I notice that her face no longer has the same expression of gullibility. The expression is now cold, indifferent, absent-minded, like that of passengers who have to wait a long time for a train. She is still dressed beautifully and simply, but carelessly; It is clear that the dress and hairstyle get a lot from the couches and rocking chairs on which she lies all day long. And she's not curious,as it was before. She doesn’t ask me any questions, as if she’s already experienced everything in life and doesn’t expect to hear anything new.

At the end of the fourth hour, movement begins in the hall and living room. It was Lisa who returned from the conservatory and brought her friends with her. You can hear them playing the grand piano, trying out their voices and laughing; in the dining room, Yegor sets the table and knocks on the dishes.

"Farewell," says Katya. -"I won’t come to yours today. Let them excuse me. No time. Come.

As I walk her to the front, she looks me sternly from head to toe and says in frustration

--And you're losing weight! Why aren't you being treated? I will go to Sergei Fedorovich and invite him. Let him look at you.

-- No need, Katya.

--I don't understand what your family is watching! Good, nothing to say.

She impetuously puts on her fur coat, and at this time two or three stilettos certainly fall to the floor from her carelessly made hairstyle. There is no time to fix her hair; she awkwardly hides her fallen curls under her hat and leaves.

When I enter the dining room, my wife asks me:

"Did you have Katya now?" Why didn't she come to us? It's even strange...

-- Mom! - Lisa tells her reproachfully. -If he doesn’t want to, then God bless her. We can't kneel.

'-As you wish, this is neglect. Sitting in the office for three hours and not remembering us. However, as she pleases.

Varya and Lisa both hate Katya. This hatred is incomprehensible to me and, probably, to understand it, you need to be a woman. I guarantee that of those one and a half hundred young men whom I see almost every day in my audience, and of those hundred elderly whom I have to meet every week, there is hardly a single one who could understand hatred and disgust for Katya’s past, that is, to an extramarital pregnancy and to an illegitimate child; and at the same time, I cannot remember a single woman or girl I know who, consciously or instinctively, does not harbor these feelings within herself. And this is not because a woman is more virtuous and purer than a man: after all, virtue and purity differ little from vice if they are not free from evil feelings. I explain this simply by the backwardness of women. A sad feeling of compassion and pain of consciencewhat a modern man experiences when he sees misfortune tells me much more about culture and moral growth than hatred and disgust. The modern woman is as tearful and rude in heart as she was in the Middle Ages. And in my opinion, those who advise her to be raised as a man act quite wisely.

My wife doesn’t like Katya because she was an actress, because she was ungrateful, because she was proud, because she was eccentric and because of all the numerous vices that one woman always knows how to find in another.

In addition to me and my family, we have two or three more of my daughter’s friends and Alexander Adolfovich Gnekker, a fan of Lisa and a contender for her hand, having lunch. This is a young blond man, no older than 30 years old, of average height, very plump, broad-shouldered, with red sideburns near his ears and with a naphabrenic antennae, giving his full, smooth face some kind of toy expression. He is dressed in a very short jacket, a colored vest, trousers with large checks, very wide at the top and very narrow at the bottom, and yellow boots without heels. His eyes are bulging, crayfish, his tie looks like a crayfish neck, and even, it seems to me, this whole young man emits the smell of cancer soup. He visits us every day, but no one in my family knows what his origin is, where he studied and on what means he lives. He doesn't play or sing, but he has something to do with both music and singinghe sells someone's grand pianos somewhere, often goes to the conservatory, knows all the celebrities and manages them at concerts; He judges music with great authority and, I noticed, everyone willingly agrees with him.

Rich people always have hangers-on around them; science and art too. There seems to be no art or science in the world that is free from the presence of "foreign bodies" like this Mr. Gnecker. I am not a musician and, perhaps, I am mistaken about Gnecker, whom, moreover, I know little. But his authority and the dignity with which he stands near the piano and listens when someone sings or plays seem too suspicious to me.

If you are a hundred times a gentleman and a privy councillor, but if you have a daughter, then you are not guaranteed in any way against the philistinism that courtship, matchmaking and weddings often bring into your home and mood. For example, I just can’t make peace with the solemn expression that my wife has every time Gnecker sits with us, I also can’t make peace with those bottles of lafite, port and sherry that are placed just for his sake, so that he can see with his own eyes how widely and luxuriously we live. I can’t stomach Lisa’s staccato laughter, which she learned at the conservatory, and her manner of squinting her eyes when we have men. And most importantly, I just can’t understand why a creature that is completely alien to my habits, my science, the entire make-up of my life comes to me every day and dines with me every daycompletely different from the people I love. The wife and servants mysteriously whisper that "this is the groom," but I still do not understand his presence; it excites me with the same bewilderment as if a Zulu had been seated at the table with me. And it also seems strange to me that my daughter, whom I used to consider a child, loves this tie, these eyes, these soft cheeks...

Previously, I loved lunch or was indifferent to it, but now it excites nothing in me except boredom and irritation. Since I became excellent and visited the deans of the faculty, for some reason my family found it necessary to completely change our menu and dining arrangements. Instead of those simple dishes that I was used to when I was a student and doctor, now they feed me puree soup, in which some white icicles float, and kidneys in a madera. The rank of general and fame took away from me forever cabbage soup, delicious pies, goose with apples, and bream with porridge. They took away from me the maid Agasha, a talkative and funny old woman, instead of whom Yegor, a stupid and arrogant guy, with a white glove on his right hand, is now serving lunch. The intermissions are short, but seem excessively long because there is nothing to fill them with. There is no longer the same fun, relaxed conversationsjokes, laughter, there are no mutual caresses and the joy that worried the children, wife and me when we used to get together in the dining room; for me, a busy man, lunch was a time of rest and meeting, and for my wife and children it was a holiday, albeit short, but bright and joyful, when they knew that for half an hour I belonged not to science, not to students, but only to them and no one else. There is no longer the ability to get drunk from one glass, there is no Agasha, there is no bream with porridge, there is no noise that small lunch scandals have always encountered, such as a fight between a cat and a dog under the table or a bandage with Katya’s cheek falling into a bowl of soup. but bright and joyful when they knew that for half an hour I belonged not to science, not to students, but only to them alone and no one else. There is no longer the ability to get drunk from one glass, there is no Agasha, there is no bream with porridge, there is no noise that small lunch scandals have always encountered, such as a fight between a cat and a dog under the table or a bandage with Katya’s cheek falling into a bowl of soup. but bright and joyful when they knew that for half an hour I belonged not to science, not to students, but only to them alone and no one else. There is no longer the ability to get drunk from one glass, there is no Agasha, there is no bream with porridge, there is no noise that small lunch scandals have always encountered, such as a fight between a cat and a dog under the table or a bandage with Katya’s cheek falling into a bowl of soup.

Describing today's lunch is as tasteless as eating it. The wife has solemnity, feigned importance and the usual expression of care on her face. She looks restlessly around our plates and says: "I see you don't like the roast... Say: you don’t like it, do you?" And I have to answer: "You’re worried in vain, honey, the roast is very tasty.". And she: "You always stand up for me, Nikolai Stepanych, and you will never tell the truth. Why did Alexander Adolfovich eat so little?" and all that kind of stuff throughout lunch. Lisa laughs abruptly and squints her eyes. I look at both, and only now at lunch it is absolutely clear to me that the inner life of both has long eluded my observation. I feel like I once lived at home with a real familyand now I’m having lunch visiting a not real wife and I see a not real Lisa. There was a sharp change in both, I missed the long process by which this change was made, and it’s no wonder that I don’t understand anything. Why did the change happen? I do not know. Perhaps the whole problem is that God did not give his wife and daughter the same strength as me. Since childhood, I have been accustomed to resisting external influences and have strengthened myself enough; such everyday catastrophes as fame, generalship, the transition from contentment to living beyond my means, acquaintance with the nobility, etc., barely touched me, and I remained safe and sound; on the weak, unhardened wife and Lisa, all this fell like a large block of snow and crushed them. Why did the change happen? I do not know. Perhaps the whole problem is that God did not give his wife and daughter the same strength as me. Since childhood, I have been accustomed to resisting external influences and have strengthened myself enough; such everyday catastrophes as fame, generalship, the transition from contentment to living beyond my means, acquaintance with the nobility, etc., barely touched me, and I remained safe and sound; on the weak, unhardened wife and Lisa, all this fell like a large block of snow and crushed them. Why did the change happen? I do not know. Perhaps the whole problem is that God did not give his wife and daughter the same strength as me. Since childhood, I have been accustomed to resisting external influences and have strengthened myself enough; such everyday catastrophes as fame, generalship, the transition from contentment to living beyond my means, acquaintance with the nobility, etc., barely touched me, and I remained safe and sound; on the weak, unhardened wife and Lisa, all this fell like a large block of snow and crushed them. the unhardened wife and Lisa all fell like a large block of snow and crushed them. the unhardened wife and Lisa all fell like a large block of snow and crushed them.

The young ladies and Gnecker talk about fugues, counterpoints, about singers and pianists, about Bach and Brahms, and the wife, afraid that she will be suspected of musical ignorance, smiles sympathetically at them and mutters: "This is lovely... Really? Say..." Gnecker eats solidly, makes solid jokes and listens condescendingly to the young ladies' comments. Occasionally he has a desire to speak bad French, and then for some reason he finds it necessary to call me votre excellence {your Excellency (French).}.

And I'm gloomy. Apparently, I embarrass them all, and they embarrass me. Never before have I been briefly acquainted with class antagonism, but now it is something like this that torments me. I try to find only bad features in Gnecker, I soon find them and am tormented that a person not in my circle is sitting in his groom’s seat. His presence has a bad effect on me in another way. Usually, when I stay with myself or am in the company of people I love, I never think about my merits, and if I begin to think, they seem so insignificant to me, as if I had become a scientist only yesterday; in the presence of people like Gnecker, my merits seem to me like the highest mountain, the top of which disappears in the clouds, and at the foot the Gneckers, barely noticeable to the eye, move.

After lunch, I go to my office and light my pipe there, the only one of the whole day that has survived the long-standing, bad habit of smoking from morning to night. When I smoke, my wife comes in and sits down to talk to me. Just like in the morning, I know in advance what we will be talking about.

"You and I should have a serious talk, Nikolai Stepanych", she begins. -- I'm talking about Lisa... Why don't you pay attention?

-- So?

'"You pretend you don't notice anything, but it's not good. You can't be careless... Gnecker has intentions about Lisa... What do you say?

"That he’s a bad person, I can’t say, since I don’t know him, but that I don’t like him, I’ve told you about this a thousand times already.

--But you can't do that... you can't...

She gets up and walks around in excitement.

"You can’t take a serious step like that..." - she says. - When it comes to your daughter’s happiness, you need to discard everything personal. I know you don't like him... Okay... If we refuse him now, upset everything, then how will you guarantee that Lisa won’t complain about us all her life? Now there are not God knows how many grooms, and it may happen that another party will not introduce itself... He loves Lisa very much and apparently she likes him... Of course, he does not have a specific position, but what to do? God willing, over time he will decide somewhere. He comes from a good family and is rich.

--How do you know this?

--He was talking. His father has a large house in Kharkov and an estate near Kharkov. In a word, Nikolai Stepanych, you definitely need to go to Kharkov.

-- Why?

--You'll find out there... You know professors there, they will help you. I would go myself, but I am a woman. Can not...

"I won’t go to Kharkov," I say gloomily.

The wife gets scared, and an expression of excruciating pain appears on her face.

--For God's sake, Nikolai Stepanych! - she begs me, sobbing. - For God's sake, take this burden off me! I'm suffering!

It's getting painful for me to look at her.

"okay, Varya," I say affectionately. -If you want, then if you please, I will go to Kharkov and do whatever you want.

She presses the handkerchief to her eyes and goes into her room to cry. I'm left alone.

A little later they bring fire. From the chairs and lamp cap, familiar, long-tired shadows lie on the walls and floor, and when I look at them, it seems to me that it is already night and that my damned insomnia is already beginning. I go to bed, then I get up and walk around the room, then I go to bed again... Usually after lunch, before evening, my nervous excitement reaches its highest degree. I start crying for no reason and hide my head under my pillow. At this time, I’m afraid that someone will come in, I’m afraid of dying suddenly, I’m ashamed of my tears, and in general I get something unbearable in my soul. I feel like I can't see my lamp, books, or shadows on the floor any longer, and I can't hear the voices coming out in the living room. Some invisible and incomprehensible force roughly pushes me out of my apartment. I jump up, dress hastily and carefullyso that my family doesn’t notice, I go outside. Where to go?

The answer to this question has been in my brain for a long time: to Katya.

III

As usual, she lies on a Turkish sofa or couch and reads something. Seeing me, she lazily raises her head, sits down and extends her hand to me.

"and you’re still lying there," I say, after a little silence and rest. - It's unhealthy. You should do something!

-- Huh?

"you’d do something, I say.".

-- With what? A woman can only be a simple worker or actress.

-- Well, what? If you can’t become a worker, go to become an actress.

Silent.

"I would get married," I say half-jokingly.

--Not for anyone. And there is no need.

--You can't live like that.

-- Without a husband? Great importance! There are as many men as you like, there would be a hunt.

"This, Katya, is ugly."

--What's ugly?

"Yes, that’s what you just said.".

Noticing that I am upset, and wanting to smooth out the bad impression, Katya says:

-- Let's go. Come here. Here.

She takes me to a small, very cozy room and says, pointing to a desk:

-- Here... I have prepared it for you. This is where you will study. Come every day and bring work with you. And there at home they only bother you. Will you work here? Do you want to?

In order not to upset her with her refusal, I answer her that I will study with her and that I really like the room. Then we both sit down in a cozy room and start talking.

The warmth, cozy atmosphere and presence of a nice person now excite in me not a feeling of pleasure, as before, but a strong urge to complain and grumble. For some reason it seems to me that if I flog and complain, I will feel better.

-- Bad business, my dear! - I begin with a sigh. - Very bad...

-- What is it?

"you see what it's all about, my friend.". The best and most sacred right of kings is the right of pardon. And I always felt like a king, since I enjoyed this right limitlessly. I never judged, I was lenient, I willingly forgave everyone left and right. Where others protested and were indignant, there I only advised and convinced. All my life I tried only to ensure that my company was tolerable for my family, students, comrades, and servants. And this attitude of mine towards people, I know, raised everyone who had to be around me. But now I'm not a king. Something is happening in me that is only decent for slaves: evil thoughts wander in my head day and night, and in my soul they have built a nest of feelings that I did not know before. I hate, and I despise, and I am indignant, and I am indignant, and I am afraid. I became overly strict, demanding, irritable, unkindsuspicious. Even what previously gave me reason only to say an extra pun and laugh good-naturedly will now give rise to a heavy feeling in me. My logic has also changed in me: before I despised only money, but now I have an evil feeling not for money, but for the rich, as if they were to blame; Before I hated violence and arbitrariness, but now I hate people who use violence, as if they alone are to blame, and not all of us who do not know how to educate each other. What does this mean? If new thoughts and new feelings came from a change in beliefs, then where could this change come from? Has the world gotten worse and I'm better, or was I blind and indifferent before? If this change occurred from a general decline in physical and mental strength - I’m sick and lose weight every day - then I feel sorry for my situation: it means that my new thoughts are abnormal, unhealthy,I should be ashamed of them and consider them insignificant...

"The disease has nothing to do with it", Katya interrupts me. -Your eyes just opened; that's all. You saw something that for some reason you didn’t want to notice before. In my opinion, first of all, you need to finally break up with your family and leave.

'"You're talking ridiculous things.

"you don’t like them, why lie? And is this a family? Nonentities! They die today, and tomorrow no one will notice their absence.

Katya despises her wife and daughter as much as they hate her. It is hardly possible in our time to talk about the right of people to despise each other. But if you take Katya’s point of view and recognize such a right as existing, you will still see that she has the same right to despise her wife and Lisa as they do to hate her.

"Nonentities!" she repeats, "Did you have lunch today? How come they didn’t forget to invite you to the dining room? How do they still remember your existence?

"katya", I say sternly, I beg you to be quiet.

"do you think I have fun talking about them? I would be glad not to know them at all. Listen to me, my dear: drop everything and leave. Go abroad. The sooner the better.

-- What nonsense! What about the university?

--And the university too. What is he to you? Still no use. You've been reading for 30 years, but where are your students? Do you have many famous scientists? Consider it! And to reproduce these doctors who exploit ignorance and make hundreds of thousands, you don’t need to be a talented and good person. You are superfluous.

"My God, how harsh you are!" I'm horrified. - How harsh you are! Shut up or I'll leave! I don't know how to respond to your harshness!

The maid comes in and calls us to have tea. Near the samovar, our conversation, thank God, is changing. After I have already complained, I want to give vent to my other senile weakness - memories. I tell Katya about my past and, to my great surprise, I tell her details that I didn’t even suspect were still intact in my memory. And she listens to me with tenderness, with pride, holding her breath. I especially love telling her about how I once studied at the seminary and how I dreamed of going to university.

"I used to walk around our seminary garden..." - I tell you. -- The wind will carry the beeping of an accordion and a song from some distant tavern, or a troika with bells will rush past the seminary fence, and this is absolutely enough for a feeling of happiness to suddenly fill not only the chest, but even the stomach, legs, arms... You listen to harmonica or dying bells, and you imagine yourself as a doctor and draw pictures - one better than the other. And so, as you can see, my dreams came true. I got more than I dared to dream. For thirty years I was a beloved professor, had excellent comrades, and enjoyed honorable fame. I loved, married out of passionate love, had children. In a word, if you look back, my whole life seems to me to be a beautiful, talentedly made composition. Now all I have to do is not spoil the finale.To do this you need to die like a human being. If death is truly a danger, then you need to meet it as befits a teacher, scientist and citizen of a Christian state: cheerfully and with a calm soul. But I'm ruining the ending. I drown, I run to you, I ask for help, and you to me: drown, that’s how it should be.

But then the bell rings in the hallway. Katya and I recognize him and say:

"That must be Mikhail Fedorovich."

And in fact, a minute later my friend, a philologist, Mikhail Fedorovich, enters, tall, well built, about 50 years old, with thick gray hair, black eyebrows and shaved. This is a kind person and a wonderful comrade. It comes from an old noble family, quite happy and talented, playing a prominent role in the history of our literature and enlightenment. He himself is smart, talented, very educated, but not without oddities. To some extent, we are all strange and we are all eccentrics, but his oddities represent something exceptional and unsafe for his acquaintances. Between the latter, I know many who, behind his oddities, do not see his many advantages at all.

Entering us, he slowly takes off his gloves and says in a velvet bass voice

-- Hello. Do you drink tea? This is very useful. It's hellishly cold.

He then sits down at the table, takes a glass for himself, and immediately begins to speak. The most characteristic thing about his manner of speaking is his constantly humorous tone, some kind of cross between philosophy and jokerism, like Shakespeare's grave diggers. He always talks serious, but he never talks serious. His judgments are always harsh and brunchy, but thanks to his soft, even, humorous tone, it somehow turns out that harshness and swearing do not hurt the ear and you soon get used to them. Every evening he brings with him about five or six jokes from university life and usually starts with them when he sits down at the table.

"Oh, my God," he sighs, mockingly moving his black eyebrows. -There are such comedians in the world!

"What?" asks Katya.

--I'm coming from a lecture today and I meet this old idiot, our NN, on the stairs... He walks and, as usual, puts his horse chin forward and looks for someone to complain to about his migraine, about his wife and about students who do not want to attend his lectures. Well, I think I saw me - now I’m dead, the case is gone...

And so on like that. Or it starts like this:

--Was at our ZZ's public lecture yesterday. I’m surprised how this alma mater of ours {mother-nurse, here: university (lat.).}, don’t be remembered by nightfall, decides to show the public such dunces and patented idiots as this ZZ. After all, this is a European fool! For mercy's sake, you won't find anything else like this all over Europe during the day! He reads, you can imagine, like a lollipop sucks: shu-shu-shu... He got scared, doesn’t understand his manuscript well, his thoughts move barely, at the speed of an archimandrite riding a bicycle, and most importantly, you can’t figure out what he wants to say. The boredom is terrible, the flies are dying. This boredom can only be compared with what happens in our assembly hall during a one-year act, when a traditional speech is read so that the devil can take it.

And immediately a sudden transition:

"I had to read this speech three years ago, Nikolai Stepanovich remembers. It's hot, stuffy, the uniform is pressing under your arms - just death! I read for half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half, two hours... "Well, I guess thank goodness, there's only ten pages left.". And at the end I had such four pages that I didn’t have to read them at all, and I expected to release them. So, I think there are only six left. But, imagine, I glanced briefly forward and saw: in the first row sitting next to me were some general with a ribbon and a bishop. The poor people are numb with boredom, they gawk their eyes so as not to fall asleep, and yet they still try to portray attention on their faces and pretend that they understand and like my reading. Well, I think if you like it, then so be it! For evil! I took it and read all four pages.

When he speaks, only his eyes and eyebrows smile, like mocking people in general. In his eyes at this time there is neither hatred nor anger, but there is a lot of sharpness and that special fox trick that can only be noticed in very observant people. If we continue to talk about his eyes, I noticed another feature of them. When he takes a glass from Katya, or listens to her remark, or watches her off when she for some reason leaves the room for a short time, then in his gaze I notice something meek, praying, clean...

The maid cleans the samovar and puts on the table a large piece of cheese, fruit and a bottle of Crimean champagne, a rather bad wine that Katya fell in love with when she lived in Crimea. Mikhail Fedorovich takes two decks of cards from the shelf and lays out solitaire. According to him, some solitaire games require a lot of intelligence and attention, but nevertheless, when playing them out, he does not stop entertaining himself with conversation. Katya closely follows his cards and helps him with facial expressions more than words. She drinks no more than two glasses of wine all evening, I drink a quarter of a glass; the rest of the bottle comes from Mikhail Fedorovich, who can drink a lot and never gets drunk.

During solitaire, we solve various issues, mainly of a higher order, and what we love most, that is, science, gets the most.

"Science, thank God, has outlived its usefulness," says Mikhail Fedorovich with the arrangement. - Her song is already sung. Yes, sir. Humanity is already beginning to feel the need to replace it with something else. She grew up on the basis of prejudices, fed by prejudices and now constitutes the same quintessence of prejudices as her outdated grandmothers: alchemy, metaphysics and philosophy. And really, what did she give to people? After all, between European and Chinese scientists who do not have any sciences, the difference is the most insignificant, purely external. The Chinese did not know science, but what did they lose from it?

"and flies don't know science", I say, "but what of it?

"you’re angry in vain, Nikolai Stepanych.". I'm saying this here, between us... I'm more careful than you think, and I won't say it publicly, God forbid! There is a prejudice among the masses that science and art are higher than agriculture, trade, and higher than crafts. Our sect feeds on this prejudice and it is not for me and you to destroy it. God save!

Young people also get nuts at solitaire.

"Our audience is grinding today," sighs Mikhail Fedorovich. - Not to mention ideals and so on, but at least they knew how to work and think properly! That's it: "I look sadly at our generation.".

"Yes, they crushed it terribly," agrees Katya. - Tell me, have you had at least one outstanding one in the last five to ten years?

"I don’t know about other professors, but I don’t remember anything about myself.".

"I’ve seen a lot of students and your young scientists in my lifetime, a lot of actors... Well? I have never been honored to meet not only a hero or talent, but even just an interesting person. Everything is gray, mediocre, inflated with claims...

All this talk about grinding gives me the impression every time that I accidentally overheard a bad conversation about my daughter. I am offended that the accusations are sweeping and built on such long-worn common places, such bogeys as grinding, lack of ideals or reference to a wonderful past. Any accusation, even if it is expressed in women's society, must be formulated with the greatest certainty, otherwise it is not an accusation, but empty slander unworthy of decent people.

I am an old man, I have been serving for 30 years, but I don’t notice any grinding or lack of ideals and I don’t find it worse now than before. My doorman, Nikolai, whose experience in this case comes at a price, says that today's students are no better and no worse than the previous ones.

If they asked me what I don’t like about my current students, I would not answer this immediately and not much, but with sufficient certainty. I know their shortcomings and therefore I do not need to resort to the fog of common places. I don't like that they smoke tobacco, drink alcohol and get married late; that they are careless and often indifferent to such an extent that they tolerate starving people in their environment and do not pay debts to the student welfare community. They do not know new languages and express themselves incorrectly in Russian; no further than yesterday, my friend, a hygienist, complained to me that he had to read twice as much, since they did not know physics well and were completely unfamiliar with meteorology. They willingly succumb to the influence of modern writers, not even the best, but are completely indifferent to such classics as, for example, Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius,Epictetus or Pascal, and this inability to distinguish big from small is most affected by their everyday impracticality. They resolve all difficult issues that are more or less public in nature (for example, resettlement) with signature sheets, but not through scientific research and experience, although the latter path is at their complete disposal and is most consistent with their purpose. They willingly become residents, assistants, laboratory assistants, external students and are ready to occupy these places until they are forty years old, although independence, a sense of freedom and personal initiative are no less necessary in science than, for example, in art or trade. I have students and listeners, but no helpers and heirs, and therefore I love them and am touched, but I am not proud of them. Etc, etc... and this inability to distinguish big from small is most affected by their everyday impracticality. They resolve all difficult issues that are more or less public in nature (for example, resettlement) with signature sheets, but not through scientific research and experience, although the latter path is at their complete disposal and is most consistent with their purpose. They willingly become residents, assistants, laboratory assistants, external students and are ready to occupy these places until they are forty years old, although independence, a sense of freedom and personal initiative are no less necessary in science than, for example, in art or trade. I have students and listeners, but no helpers and heirs, and therefore I love them and am touched, but I am not proud of them. Etc, etc... and this inability to distinguish big from small is most affected by their everyday impracticality. They resolve all difficult issues that are more or less public in nature (for example, resettlement) with signature sheets, but not through scientific research and experience, although the latter path is at their complete disposal and is most consistent with their purpose. They willingly become residents, assistants, laboratory assistants, external students and are ready to occupy these places until they are forty years old, although independence, a sense of freedom and personal initiative are no less necessary in science than, for example, in art or trade. I have students and listeners, but no helpers and heirs, and therefore I love them and am touched, but I am not proud of them. Etc, etc... having a more or less social character (for example, resettlement), they decide with signature sheets, but not through scientific research and experience, although the latter path is at their complete disposal and most corresponds to their purpose. They willingly become residents, assistants, laboratory assistants, external students and are ready to occupy these places until they are forty years old, although independence, a sense of freedom and personal initiative are no less necessary in science than, for example, in art or trade. I have students and listeners, but no helpers and heirs, and therefore I love them and am touched, but I am not proud of them. Etc, etc... having a more or less social character (for example, resettlement), they decide with signature sheets, but not through scientific research and experience, although the latter path is at their complete disposal and most corresponds to their purpose. They willingly become residents, assistants, laboratory assistants, external students and are ready to occupy these places until they are forty years old, although independence, a sense of freedom and personal initiative are no less necessary in science than, for example, in art or trade. I have students and listeners, but no helpers and heirs, and therefore I love them and am touched, but I am not proud of them. Etc, etc... assistants, laboratory assistants, external students are ready to occupy these places for up to forty years, although independence, a sense of freedom and personal initiative are no less necessary in science than, for example, in art or trade. I have students and listeners, but no helpers and heirs, and therefore I love them and am touched, but I am not proud of them. Etc, etc... assistants, laboratory assistants, external students are ready to occupy these places for up to forty years, although independence, a sense of freedom and personal initiative are no less necessary in science than, for example, in art or trade. I have students and listeners, but no helpers and heirs, and therefore I love them and am touched, but I am not proud of them. Etc, etc...

Such shortcomings, no matter how many there are, can give rise to a pessimistic or brunchy mood only in a cowardly and timid person. All of them are random, transitory in nature and are completely dependent on living conditions; It only takes ten years for them to disappear or give up their place to other, new shortcomings that cannot be avoided and which in turn will frighten the cowardly. Student sins often annoy me, but this annoyance is nothing compared to the joy that I have experienced for 30 years, when I talk with students, read to them, take a closer look at their relationships and compare them with people not in their circle.

Mikhail Fedorovich curses, Katya listens, and both do not notice into what a deep abyss such apparently innocent entertainment as condemning their neighbors is gradually drawing them into. They do not feel how simple conversation gradually turns into mockery and mockery, and how both of them begin to use even slanderous techniques.

""You come across subjects who are hilarious," says Mikhail Fedorovich. - Yesterday I came to our Yegor Petrovich and found a 3rd year student there, one of your own doctors, it seems. The face is like that... in the Dobrolyubov style, on the forehead is a stamp of deep thought. We talked. "Such and such things, I say, young man. I read, I say that some German - - forgot his last name - got a new alkaloid from the human brain - - idiotin'. What do you think? He believed and even showed respect on his face: know ours! Otherwise the other day I come to the theater. I'm sitting down. Just in front of me, in the next row, there are two of them sitting: one "from the nashikhs" and, apparently, a lawyer, the other, shaggy, is a doctor. The medic is drunk like a shoemaker. There is zero attention on stage. Know that he is dozing and nodding off.But as soon as some actor starts reading the monologue loudly or simply raises his voice, my medic shudders, pushes his neighbor in the side and asks: "What is he saying? Blah-a-rodno?" - "Noble," - answers "from the nashi." - "Brravo! - the doctor yells. -- Blah-a-rodno! Bravo!" He, you see, is a drunken club, he came to the theater not for art, but for nobility. He needs nobility.

And Katya listens and laughs. Her laughter is somehow strange: inhalations quickly and rhythmically correctly alternate with exhalations - it’s like she’s playing the harmonica - and only her nostrils laugh on her face. I’m losing heart and don’t know what to say. When I lose my temper, I burst into flames, jump up from my seat and shout:

--Silence, finally! Why are you sitting here like two toads and poisoning the air with your breaths? Enough!

And without waiting for them to stop slandering, I'm going to go home. Yes, it's time: the eleventh hour.

"And I’ll sit a little longer," says Mikhail Fedorovich. -Do you allow me, Ekaterina Vladimirovna?

"I allow it," Katya answers.

-- Bene {Good (Latin).}. In this case, order another bottle.

Both accompany me with candles to the front room, and while I put on my fur coat, Mikhail Fedorovich says:

"You’ve lost a lot of weight and age lately, Nikolai Stepanovich. What's wrong with you? Are you sick?

--Yes, a little sick.

"And there’s no cure..." Katya slumbers in.

--Why aren't you being treated? How can this be? God protects those who are careful, dear man. Bow to yours and apologize that I never will. One of these days, before leaving abroad, I will come to say goodbye. Definitely! I'm leaving next week.

I leave Katya irritated, frightened by the talk about my illness and dissatisfied with myself. I ask myself: really, shouldn’t I get treatment from one of my comrades? And immediately I imagine how a comrade, after listening to me, will silently go to the window, think, then turn to me and, trying not to read the truth on his face, say in an indifferent tone: "I don’t see anything special yet, but still, colleague, I would advise you to stop studying."... And this will deprive me of my last hope.

Who has no hope? Now, when I diagnose myself and treat myself, at times I hope that I am deceived by my ignorance, that I am mistaken about the protein and sugar that I find in myself, and about the heart, and about the swelling that I have already seen twice in the morning; When I diligently re-read therapy textbooks and change medications every day, everything seems to me that I'll come across something comforting. It's all small.

Whether the sky is covered with clouds or the moon and stars shine on it, every time I return, I look at it and think that death will soon take me. It would seem that at this time my thoughts should be deep, like the sky, bright, amazing... But no! I think about myself, about my wife, Lisa, Gnecker, about students, about people in general; I think it’s not good, petty, I’m cunning in front of myself, and at this time my worldview can be expressed in the words that the famous Arakcheev said in one of his intimate letters: "Everything good in the world cannot be without bad, and always worse than good.". That is, everything is disgusting, there is nothing to live for, and those 62 years that have already been lived should be considered lost. I catch myself on these thoughts and try to convince myself that they are random, temporary and do not sit deep in me, but immediately I think:

"If so, why are you drawn to those two toads every night?"

And I swear to myself never to go to Katya again, although I know that tomorrow I will go to her again.

Pulling the bell at my door and then walking up the stairs, I feel that I no longer have a family and have no desire to return it. It is clear that new, Arakcheev’s thoughts do not sit in me by chance or temporarily, but own my entire being. With a bad conscience, sad, lazy, barely moving my dicks, as if a thousand pounds of weight had been added to me, I go to bed and soon fall asleep.

And then - insomnia...

IV

Summer is coming and life is changing.

One fine morning Lisa comes in to me and says in a joking tone

"Let’s go, your excellency.". Done.

My Excellency is taken outside, put on a cab and driven. I'm driving and having nothing to do, I read the signs from right to left. From the word "tavern" comes "ritcard". This would be suitable for a baronial surname: Baroness Rietkart. Then I drive across the field past the cemetery, which makes absolutely no impression on me, although I will soon lie on it; then I drive through the forest and again through the field. Nothing interesting. After a two-hour drive, my Excellency is taken to the lower floor of the dacha and placed in a small, very cheerful room with blue wallpaper.

At night I still have insomnia, but in the morning I am no longer awake or listening to my wife, but lying in bed. I don’t sleep, but experience a drowsy state, half-forgetfulness, when you know that you don’t sleep, but you see dreams. At noon I get up and sit down at my table out of habit, but I don’t work, but entertain myself with French books in yellow covers that Katya sends me. Of course, it would be more patriotic to read Russian authors, but, frankly, I don’t have much affection for them. Excluding two or three old people, all current literature seems to me not to be literature, but a kind of handicraft, existing only to be encouraged, but reluctantly to use its Products. The best of handicrafts cannot be called wonderful and cannot be sincerely praised without but; the same should be said about all those literary innovationswhich I have read in the last 10 - 15 years: not a single wonderful one, and you can’t do without co. Smart, noble, but not talented; talented, noble, but not smart, or finally - talented, smart, but not noble.

I won’t say that French books are talented, smart, or noble. And they don't satisfy me. But they are not as boring as Russians, and it is not uncommon to find in them the main element of creativity - a sense of personal freedom, which Russian authors do not have. I don’t remember a single new product in which the author from the very first page would not try to entangle himself with all sorts of conventions and contracts with his conscience. One is afraid to talk about a naked body, the other has tied himself hand and foot with psychological analysis, the third needs a "warm attitude towards a person," the fourth deliberately smears entire pages with descriptions of nature so as not to be suspected of bias... One wants to be in his works certainly a tradesman, the other certainly a nobleman, etc. Intentionality, caution, on his own mind, but there is neither freedom nor the courage to writeas I want, and therefore there is no creativity.

All this relates to the so-called fine literature.

As for serious Russian articles, for example, on sociology, art, etc., I don’t read them simply out of timidity. As a child and in my youth, for some reason I had a fear of doormen and theater ushers, and this fear still remains with me. I'm still afraid of them. They say that only what is incomprehensible seems scary. Indeed, it is very difficult to understand why doormen and ushers are so important, arrogant and majestically impolite. Reading serious articles, I feel exactly the same vague fear. Extraordinary importance, a playful general's tone, familiar treatment of foreign authors, the ability to pour with dignity from empty to empty - all this is incomprehensible to me, scary and all this does not look like the modesty and gentlemanly calm tone to which I am accustomed when reading our writers -doctors and naturalists. Not just articlesbut it’s hard for me to read even translations that are made or edited by serious Russian people. The pompous, favorable tone of the prefaces, the abundance of notes from the translator that prevent me from concentrating, the question marks and sic in brackets scattered by the generous translator throughout the article or book seem to me to be an attack on both the personality of the author and my reading independence.

Once I was invited as an expert to the district court; During the intermission, one of my fellow experts drew my attention to the prosecutor’s rude attitude towards the defendants, among whom were two intelligent women. It seems to me that I did not exaggerate at all, answering a friend that this attitude is no rougher than those that the authors of serious articles have towards each other. In fact, this relationship is so rough that one can only talk about it with a heavy feeling. They either treat each other and the writers they criticize with excessive respect, not sparing their dignity, or, on the contrary, treat them much more boldly than I do in these notes and the thoughts of my future son-in-law Gnecker. Accusations of insanity, impurity of intent, and even all kinds of criminality constitute the usual decoration of serious articles. And this is itas young doctors like to express in their articles, ultima ratio! {last argument! (lat.).} Such relationships must inevitably affect the morals of the younger generation of writers, and therefore I am not at all surprised that in the new products that our elegant literature has acquired in the last 10 - 15 years, the heroes drink a lot of vodka, and the heroines are not chaste enough.

I read French books and look at the window, which is open; I can see the battlements of my front garden, two or three skinny trees, and then further behind the front garden there is a road, a field, then a wide strip of coniferous forest. Often I admire some boy and girl, both white-haired and ragged, climbing onto the front garden and laughing at my bald head. In their shiny little eyes I read: "come, bald one!" These are perhaps the only people who do not care about my fame or rank.

Visitors don’t come to me every day now. I will only mention the visits of Nikolai and Pyotr Ignatievich. Nikolai usually comes to me on holidays, as if at work, but more to see me. He comes very tipsy, which never happens to him in winter.

"What do you say?" I ask, going out to him in the hallway.

"your Excellency!" he says, pressing his hand to his heart and looking at me with the delight of a lover. -Your Excellency! God punish me! Kill the thunder in this place! Gaudeamus igitur juvenestus!

And he greedily kisses me on the shoulders, on the sleeves, on the buttons.

""Are we all safe there?" - I ask him.

-- Your Excellency! Like before the true...

He doesn’t stop swearing unnecessarily, he soon gets bored with me, and I send him to the kitchen where he is served lunch. Pyotr Ignatievich also comes to me on holidays specifically to visit and share his thoughts with me. He usually sits near my table, modest, clean, reasonable, not daring to put his foot on his foot or lean on the table; and all the time he, in a quiet, even voice, smoothly and bookishly tells me various, in his opinion, very interesting and piquant news, read by him from magazines and books. All this news is similar to one another and boils down to this type: one Frenchman made a discovery, another - a German - caught him, proving that this discovery was made back in 1870 by some American, and the third - also a German - outwitted both, proving to them that they both went wrongmistaking air balls under a microscope for a dark pigment. Pyotr Ignatievich, even when he wants to make me laugh, tells a long, detailed, accurate defense of his dissertation, with a detailed listing of the literary sources that he used, trying not to make mistakes either in numbers, or in magazine numbers, or in names, and he speaks not just Petit, but certainly Jean Jacques Petit. It happens that he stays with us for lunch, and then throughout the entire lunch he tells the same piquant stories that make everyone having lunch despondent. If Gnecker and Lisa start talking about fugues and counterpoints, about Brahms and Bach in front of him, then he modestly lowers his gaze and becomes embarrassed; he is ashamed that in the presence of such serious people as me and him, they talk about such vulgarity. he defends his dissertation in detail, accurately, with a detailed listing of the literary sources that he used, trying not to make mistakes either in numbers, or in magazine numbers, or in names, and he speaks not just Petit, but certainly Jean Jacques Petit. It happens that he stays with us for lunch, and then throughout the entire lunch he tells the same piquant stories that make everyone having lunch despondent. If Gnecker and Lisa start talking about fugues and counterpoints, about Brahms and Bach in front of him, then he modestly lowers his gaze and becomes embarrassed; he is ashamed that in the presence of such serious people as me and him, they talk about such vulgarity. he defends his dissertation in detail, accurately, with a detailed listing of the literary sources that he used, trying not to make mistakes either in numbers, or in magazine numbers, or in names, and he speaks not just Petit, but certainly Jean Jacques Petit. It happens that he stays with us for lunch, and then throughout the entire lunch he tells the same piquant stories that make everyone having lunch despondent. If Gnecker and Lisa start talking about fugues and counterpoints, about Brahms and Bach in front of him, then he modestly lowers his gaze and becomes embarrassed; he is ashamed that in the presence of such serious people as me and him, they talk about such vulgarity. It happens that he stays with us for lunch, and then throughout the entire lunch he tells the same piquant stories that make everyone having lunch despondent. If Gnecker and Lisa start talking about fugues and counterpoints, about Brahms and Bach in front of him, then he modestly lowers his gaze and becomes embarrassed; he is ashamed that in the presence of such serious people as me and him, they talk about such vulgarity. It happens that he stays with us for lunch, and then throughout the entire lunch he tells the same piquant stories that make everyone having lunch despondent. If Gnecker and Lisa start talking about fugues and counterpoints, about Brahms and Bach in front of him, then he modestly lowers his gaze and becomes embarrassed; he is ashamed that in the presence of such serious people as me and him, they talk about such vulgarity.

In my current mood, five minutes is enough for me to get tired of him as if I had been seeing and listening to him for ages. I hate the poor guy. From his quiet, even voice and bookish language I wither, from his stories I become dumber... He has the best feelings for me and speaks to me only to please me, and I pay him by looking at him point-blank, I definitely want to hypnotize him, and I think: "Go away, go away, go away."... But he does not succumb to mental suggestion and sits, sits, sits...

While he is sitting with me, I just can’t get rid of the thought: "it is very possible that when I die, he will be appointed in my place," and my poor audience seems to me to be an oasis in which the stream has dried up, and I and Pyotr Ignatievich are unkind, silent, gloomy, as if he, and not myself, are to blame for such thoughts. When he begins, according to custom, to extol German scientists, I no longer make good-natured jokes, as before, but gloomily mutter:

--Your donkeys are Germans...

It’s similar to how the late professor Nikita Krylov, once swimming with Pirogov in Reval and angry at the water, which was very cold, got out: "German scoundrels!" I behave badly with Pyotr Ignatievich, and only when he leaves and I see his gray hat flashing in the window behind the front garden, I want to call out to him and say: "Forgive me, my dear!"

Lunch here is more boring than in winter. The same Gnecker, whom I now hate and despise, dines at my place almost every day. Previously, I tolerated his presence in silence, but now I release barbs at his address that make my wife and Lisa blush. Carried away by evil feelings, I often say just nonsense and don’t know why I say it. This happened one day, I looked at Gnecker with contempt for a long time and out of the blue blurted out:

Eagles also happen to go down chickens

But chickens will never rise to the clouds...

And the most annoying thing is that chicken Gnecker turns out to be much smarter than the eagle professor. Knowing that his wife and daughter are on his side, he adheres to this tactic: he responds to my barbs with condescending silence (the old man was crazy, they say - why talk to him?) or he good-naturedly makes fun of me. One must be surprised to what extent a person can grind! Throughout lunch, I am able to dream about how Gnecker will turn out to be an adventurer, how Lisa and her wife will understand their mistake and how I will tease them - and similar ridiculous dreams at a time when I am already standing with one foot in the grave!

There are now misunderstandings, which I previously had only a first-hand understanding of. As ashamed as I am, I will describe one of them that happened the other day after lunch.

I'm sitting in my room smoking a pipe. As usual, my wife comes in, sits down and begins to say that it would be nice now, while it’s warm and there’s free time, to go to Kharkov and find out there what kind of person our Gnecker is.

"okay, I’ll go..." - I agree.

The wife, pleased with me, gets up and goes to the door, but immediately returns and says:

"one more request, by the way.". I know you'll get angry, but it's my responsibility to warn you... Sorry, Nikolai Stepanych, but all our friends and neighbors have already started talking about the fact that you visit Katya very often. She is smart, educated, I don’t argue, it’s nice to spend time with her, but at your age and with your social position, somehow, you know, it’s strange to find pleasure in her company... Besides, she has such a reputation that...

All the blood suddenly drains from my brain, sparks fall from my eyes, I jump up and, grabbing my head, stomping my feet, I shout in a voice other than my own:

-- Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave it!

Probably my face is terrible, my voice is strange, because my wife suddenly turns pale and screams loudly in some also not her own, desperate voice. Lisa, Gnekker, then Egor run into our cry...

-- Leave me! - I shout. - Out! Leave it!

My legs go numb, as if they were completely gone, I feel myself falling on someone’s hands, then I don’t hear crying for long and faint, which lasts for two or three hours.

Now about Katya. She visits me every day before the evening, and, of course, neither neighbors nor acquaintances can help but notice this. She comes for a minute and takes me for a ride. She has her own horse and a brand new charabanc bought this summer. In general, she lives in grand style: she hired an expensive dacha-mansion with a large garden and moved her entire city furnishings into it, has two maids and a coachman... Often I ask her:

'-Katya, how will you live when you squander your father's money?

"we’ll see there," she replies.

''This money, my friend, deserves to be taken more seriously. They were acquired by a good person, honest work.

"you’ve already told me about this.". I know.

First we drive through the field, then through the coniferous forest, which is visible from my window. Nature still seems beautiful to me, although the demon whispers to me that all these pine and spruce trees, birds and white clouds in the sky will not notice my absence in three or four months, when I die. Katya likes to rule the horse and it’s nice that the weather is good and that I’m sitting next to her. She is in the spirit and does not speak harshly.

"You are a very good person, Nikolai Stepanych," she says. -- You are a rare specimen, and there is no actor who could play you. Even a bad actor will play me or, for example, Mikhail Fedorych, but no one will play you. And I envy you, I envy you terribly! After all, what am I posing as? What?

She thinks for a minute and asks me:

"isnicholai Stepanych a negative? Yes?

"Yes", I answer.

-- Um... What should I do?

What should I answer her? It's easy to say "work", or "give your possessions to the poor", or "know yourself", and because it's easy to say, I don't know what to answer.

My comrades, therapists, when they teach treatment, advise "individualizing each individual case.". You need to listen to this advice to make sure that the products recommended in textbooks for the best and quite suitable for the template turn out to be completely unsuitable in some cases. The same is true in moral illnesses.

But there is something to answer, and I say

"You have too much free time, my friend.". You need to do something. In fact, why don’t you become an actress again if you have a calling?

-- Can't.

''Your tone and manner are as if you were a victim. I don't like this, my friend. It's your own fault. Remember, you started by getting angry with people and orders of magnitude, but did nothing to make both of them better. You did not fight evil, but tired, and you are a victim not of struggle, but of your powerlessness. Well, of course, then you were young, inexperienced, but now everything can go differently. Right, do it! You will work, serve the holy art...

"don’t lie, Nikolai Stepanych," Katya interrupts me. - Let's agree once and for all: we will talk about actors, about actresses, writers, but let's leave art alone. You are a wonderful, rare person, but you do not understand art enough to consider it a saint in all conscience. You have neither a flair nor a hearing for art. You've been busy all your life and you had no time to gain that flair. In general... I don't like this talk about art! - she continues nervously. - I don't like it! And they vulgarized him so much, thank you meekly!

--Who vulgarized?

"They vulgarized him with drunkenness, newspapers with familiar attitudes, and smart people with philosophy.".

-- Philosophy has nothing to do with it.

--With what. If someone philosophizes, it means that he does not understand.

To prevent things from getting harsh, I rush to change the conversation and then remain silent for a long time. Only when we leave the forest and head to Katya’s dacha do I return to the previous conversation and ask:

"You still didn’t answer me: why don’t you want to become an actress?"

"Nikolai Stepanych, this is finally cruel!" she screams and suddenly blushes all over. -Do you want me to tell the truth out loud? Please, if this... you like it! I have no talent! There is no talent and... and a lot of pride! Here!

Having made such a confession, she turns her face away from me and, in order to hide the trembling in her hands, pulls the reins hard.

Approaching her dacha, we can already see Mikhail Fedorovich from afar, walking near the gate and impatiently waiting for us.

-- This Mikhail Fedorych again! - says Katya with annoyance. -- Get him away from me, please! Tired, exhausted... Well, him!

Михаилу Федоровичу давно уже нужно ехать за границу, но он каждую неделю откладывает свой отъезд. В последнее время с ним произошли кое-какие перемены: он как-то осунулся, стал хмелеть от вина, чего с ним раньше никогда не бывало, и его черные брови начинают седеть. Когда наш шарабан останавливается у ворот, он не скрывает своей радости и своего нетерпения. Он суетливо высаживает Катю и меня, торопится задавать вопросы, смеется, потирает руки, и то кроткое, молящееся, чистое, что я прежде замечал только в его взгляде, теперь разлито по всему его лицу. Он радуется, и в то же время ему стыдно своей радости, стыдно этой привычки бывать у Кати каждый вечер, и он находит нужным мотивировать свой приезд какою-нибудь очевидною нелепостью, вроде: "Ехал мимо по делу и дай, думаю, заеду на минуту".

All three of us go to the rooms; First we drink tea, then two decks of cards, a large piece of cheese, fruit and a bottle of Crimean champagne, which have long been familiar to me, appear on the table. Our topics of conversation are not new, they are still the same as they were in winter. The university, students, literature, and theater get it; The air from slander becomes thicker, more stuffy, and it is no longer two toads that poison it with their breaths, like in winter, but three. In addition to velvet, baritone laughter and laughter, similar to a harmonic, the maid who serves us also hears an unpleasant, rattling laughter, like generals laugh in vaudeville: hehehe...

V

There are terrible nights with thunder, lightning, rain and wind, which are popularly called passerines. There was exactly the same sparrow night in my personal life...

I wake up after midnight and suddenly jump out of bed. For some reason it seems to me that I am about to suddenly die. Why does it seem? There is not a single sensation in the body that would indicate a quick end, but my soul is oppressed by such horror, as if I suddenly saw a huge ominous glow.

I quickly light a fire, drink water straight from the Graffin, then rush to the open window. The weather outside is great. Smells like hay and something else very good. I can see the battlements of the front garden, sleepy skinny trees by the window, the road, a dark strip of forest; the sky is calm, a very bright moon and not a single cloud. Silence, not a single leaf moves. It seems to me that everything is looking at me and listening to me die...

It's creepy. I close the window and run to bed. I feel my pulse and, not finding it on my hand, I look for it in my temples, then in my chin and again on my hand, and all this is cold, slimy with sweat. Breathing becomes more and more frequent, the body trembles, all the insides are in motion, on the face and bald head it feels as if a web is sitting on them.

What to do? Should I call my family? No, no need. I don't understand what my wife and Lisa will do when they come in to see me.

I hide my head under my pillow, close my eyes and wait, wait... My back is cold, it is definitely being pulled inside, and I feel as if death will certainly approach me from behind, slowly...

-- Kiwi-kiwi! - suddenly there is a squeak in the silence of the night, and I don’t know where it is: in my chest or on the street?

-- Kiwi-kiwi!

My God, how scary! I would like to drink more water, but I’m scared to open my eyes and I’m afraid to raise my head. My horror is unaccountable, an animal, and I just can’t understand why I’m scared: is it because I want to live, or because a new, still unknown pain awaits me?

Upstairs behind the ceiling, someone is either moaning or laughing... I'm listening. A little later, footsteps are heard on the stairs. Someone hurriedly goes down, then up again. A minute later, footsteps are heard below again; someone stops near my door and listens.

"Who's there?" I shout.

The door opens, I boldly open my eyes and see my wife. Her face is pale and her eyes are tear-stained.

"Are you awake, Nikolai Stepanych?" she asks.

-- What do you want?

"For God's sake, go see Lisa and look at her.". Something is being done to her...

-- Okay... with pleasure... - I mutter, very pleased that I am not alone. -- Okay... Right now.

I follow my wife, listen to what she tells me, and understand nothing from excitement. Light spots from her candle jump along the steps of the stairs, our long shadows tremble, my legs get tangled in the floors of my robe, I choke, and it seems to me that something is chasing me and wants to grab me by the back. "Now I’m going to die here, on these stairs," I think. "- Now..." But then we passed the stairs, a dark corridor with an Italian window, and entered Lisa’s room. She sits on the bed in only a shirt, her bare feet dangling, and moans.

-- Oh, my God... ah, my God! - she mutters, squinting at our candle. -- I can not, I can not...

"lisa, my child", I say, "What's wrong with you?" Seeing me, she screams and throws herself on my neck.

"my dad is kind..." she sobs, "my dad is good... My little one, dear... I don't know what's wrong with me... It's hard!

She hugs me, kisses me and babbles the kind of affectionate words I heard from her when she was still a child.

"calm down, my child, God be with you", I say. -- No need to cry. It's hard for me myself.

I try to cover her, her wife gives her something to drink, and we both jostle randomly near the bed; I push her on the shoulder with my shoulder, and at this time I remember how we once bathed our children together.

-- Help her, help her! - the wife begs. -Do something!

What can I do? I can't do anything. The girl has some kind of heaviness in her soul, but I don’t understand anything, I don’t know and I can only mutter.

-- Nothing, nothing... It will pass... Sleep, sleep...

As if on purpose, a dog’s howl is suddenly heard in our yard, at first quiet and indecisive, then loud, in two voices. I have never attached importance to such signs as the howl of dogs or the cry of owls, but now my heart aches painfully and I hasten to explain this howl to myself.

"Nonsense... - I think. - - The influence of one organism on another. My strong nervous tension was transmitted to my wife, Lisa, the dog, that’s all... This program explains premonitions and foresight..."

When I return to my room a little later to write a recipe for Lisa, I don’t think about the fact that I will die soon, but my soul is just heavy, tedious, so it’s even a pity that I didn’t die suddenly. For a long time I stand motionless in the middle of the room and figure out what to prescribe for Lisa, but the groans behind the ceiling fall silent, and I decide not to prescribe anything, and yet I stand...

The silence is dead, such silence that, as some writer put it, it even rings in the ears. Time passes slowly, the stripes of moonlight on the windowsill do not change their position, they are definitely frozen... Dawn is not coming soon.

But then the gate creaks in the front garden, someone sneaks in and, breaking off a branch from one of the skinny trees, carefully knocks it on the window.

-- Nikolai Stepanych! - I hear a whisper. - Nikolai Stepanych!

I open the window, and it seems to me that I am dreaming: under the window, pressed against the wall, stands a woman in a black dress, brightly lit by the moon, and looks at me with large eyes. Her face is pale, stern and fantastic from the moon, like marble, her chin trembles.

"It's me..." she says. -- I... Katya!

By moonlight, all women's eyes appear large and black, people are taller and paler, and therefore I probably did not recognize her in the first minute.

-- What do you want?

"Excuse me," she says. --For some reason it suddenly became unbearably difficult for me... I couldn’t stand it and went here... There is a light in your window and... and I decided to knock... Sorry... Oh, if only you knew how hard it was for me! What are you doing now?

-- Nothing... Insomnia.

"I had a premonition.". However, nothing.

Her eyebrows rise, her eyes sparkle with tears, and her whole face lights up like a light, a familiar, long-unseen expression of gullibility.

-- Nikolai Stepanych! - she says pleadingly, extending both hands to me. - "My dear, I ask you... I beg you... If you do not despise my friendship and respect for you, then agree to my request!

-- What is it?

--Take my money from me!

"well, here’s something else I’ve come up with! What do I need your money for?

--You'll go somewhere for treatment... You need treatment. Will you take it? Yes? Darling, right?

She eagerly peers into my face and repeats:

-- Yes? Will you take it?

"No, my friend, I won’t take it..." - I say. - Thank you.

She turns her back to me and droops her head. I probably refused her in a tone that would not allow further talk about money.

"Go home to sleep", I say. - See you tomorrow.

"So you don't consider me your friend?" she asks sadly.

--I'm not saying that. But your money is now useless to me.

"I'm sorry..." she says, lowering her voice by a full octave. -- I understand you... Borrow from someone like me... from a retired actress... However, goodbye...

And she leaves so quickly that I don’t even have time to say goodbye to her.

VI

I'm in Kharkov.

Since it would be useless to fight my current mood, and not in my power, I decided that the last days of my life would be impeccable, although from a formal point of view; if I am wrong towards my family, which I am well aware of, then I will try to do as she wants. Go to Kharkov, so go to Kharkov. Besides, lately I have been so indifferent to everything that I don’t care positively, no matter where I go, to Kharkov, to Paris, or to Berdichev.

I arrived here at about 12 noon and stayed at a hotel, not far from the cathedral. In the carriage I was seasick, drafty, and now I’m sitting on the bed, holding my head and waiting for tic. I should go to see professors I know today, but I have no desire or strength.

The old man's bellboy comes in and asks if I have any bed linen. I delay him for about five minutes and ask him a few questions about Gnecker, for whom I came here. The footman turns out to be a native of Kharkov, knows this city like the back of his hand, but does not remember a single house that would bear the surname Gnekkera. I ask about estates - the same thing.

In the corridor the clock strikes for an hour, then two, then three... The last months of my life, while I wait for death, seem to me much longer than my entire life. And never before have I been able to put up with the slowness of time as much as now. Previously, it happened that when you were waiting at the train station or sitting on an exam, a quarter of an hour seemed like an eternity, but now I can sit motionless on the bed all night and think completely indifferently that tomorrow will be the same long, colorless night, and the day after tomorrow...

It's hitting five hours, six, seven in the corridor... It's getting dark.

Dull pain in the cheek - this begins tic. To occupy myself with thoughts, I take my previous point of view when I was not indifferent, and ask: why am I, a famous man, a privy councilor, sitting in this small room, on this bed with someone else’s gray blanket? Why am I looking at this cheap tin washstand and listening to a crappy clock rattling in the hallway? Is all this worthy of my glory and my high position among people? And I answer these questions with a grin. What makes me laugh is my naivety, with which I once in my youth exaggerated the importance of the fame of that exceptional position that celebrities allegedly enjoy. I am famous, my name is pronounced with reverence, my portrait was in both "Niva" and "World Illustration",I even read my biography in a German magazine - and what of this? I’m sitting alone in a foreign city, on someone else’s bed, rubbing my sore cheek with my palm... Family squabbles, the mercy of creditors, the rudeness of railway servants, the inconvenience of the passport system, expensive and unhealthy food in buffets, general ignorance and rudeness in relationships - all this and much more that it would be too long to list concerns me no less than any tradesman, known only to his alley. What is the exclusivity of my position? Let's say that I am famous a thousand times, that I am a hero of whom my homeland is proud; in all newspapers they write ballots about my illness, sympathetic addresses from comrades, students and the public are sent to me by mail, but all this will not prevent me from dying on someone else's bed, in melancholy, in complete loneliness...Of course, no one is to blame for this, but, sinful man, I don’t like my popular name. It seems to me as if it deceived me.

At about ten o'clock I fall asleep and, despite the tic, I sleep soundly and would sleep for a long time if I were not woken up. At the beginning of the second hour there is suddenly a knock on the door.

-- Who's there?

-- Telegram!

"Could tomorrow, too," I get angry, receiving a telegram from the bellhop. - Now I won’t sleep another time.

-- Guilty, sir. Your fire is burning, I thought you were awake.

I print out the telegram and first of all look at the signature: from my wife. What does she need?

"Gnecker secretly married Lisa yesterday. Come back."

I read this telegram and get scared for a while. What scares me is not the action of Lisa and Gnecker, but my indifference with which I greet the news of their wedding. They say that philosophers and true sages are indifferent. Untruth, indifference is paralysis of the soul, premature death.

I go to bed again and begin to figure out what thoughts to occupy myself with. What to think about? It seems that everything has been changed and there is nothing that would now be able to excite my thought.

When dawn breaks, I sit in bed, hugging my knees with my hands, and with nothing to do I try to know myself. "Know thyself" is excellent and useful advice; it’s just a pity that the ancients did not think of a way to use this advice.

When I first wanted to understand someone or myself, I took into account not actions in which everything was conditional, but desires. Tell me what you want and I'll tell you who you are.

And now I'm examining myself: what do I want?

I want our wives, children, friends, students to love us not with a name, not with a company or a label, but with ordinary people. What else? I would like to have assistants and heirs. What else? I would like to wake up in a hundred years and see with at least one eye what will happen to science. I would like to live another ten years... What's next?

And then nothing. I think I think for a long time and can’t come up with anything yet. And no matter how much I think and wherever my thoughts are scattered, it is clear to me that there is nothing important in my desires, something very important. In my passion for science, in my desire to live, in this seat on someone else's bed and in the desire to know myself, in all the thoughts, feelings and concepts that I form about everything, there is nothing in common that would connect all this into one whole. Every feeling and every thought lives apart in me, and in all my judgments about science, theater, literature, students and in all the pictures that my imagination paints, even the most skilled analyst will not find what is called a general idea, or the god of a living person. And if this is not the case, then it means there is nothing.

With such poverty, a serious illness, fear of death, the influence of circumstances and people were enough for everything that I previously considered my worldview and in which I saw the meaning and joy of my life to turn upside down and shatter into shreds. It is therefore not surprising that I overshadowed the last months of my life with thoughts and feelings worthy of a slave and a barbarian, that now I am indifferent and do not notice the dawn. When a person does not have what is higher and stronger than all external influences, then, really, a good runny nose is enough for him to lose his balance and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog’s howl in every sound. And all his pessimism or optimism with his great and small thoughts at this time matter only the symptom and nothing else.

I'm defeated. If so, then there is no point in continuing to think, no point in talking. I will sit and silently wait for what will happen.

In the morning, the bellhop brings me tea and a local newspaper number. I mechanically read the announcement on the first page, the front page, excerpts from newspapers and magazines, chronicles... By the way, in the chronicle I find the following news: "Yesterday our famous scientist, Honored Professor Nikolai Stepanovich so-and-so arrived in Kharkov with a courier train and stayed in such-and-such a hotel.".

Obviously, big names are created to live apart, besides those who wear them. Now my name is serenely walking around Kharkov; in three months it, depicted in golden letters on the grave monument, will shine like the sun itself - and this at a time when I will already be covered with moss...

A slight knock on the door. Someone needs me.

-- Who's there? Come in!

The door opens, and I, surprised, take a step back and rush to smell the floors of my robe. Katya is standing in front of me.

"hello", she says, breathing heavily from walking up the stairs. -Didn't expect? Me too... I also came here.

She sits down and continues, stuttering and not looking at me:

-- Why don't you say hello? I also arrived... today... I found out that you are in this hotel and came to you.

"very glad to see you", I say, shrugging my shoulders, "but I am surprised... You definitely fell out of the sky. Why are you here?

-- I? So... I just took it and came.

Silence. Suddenly she impetuously gets up and comes towards me.

-- Nikolai Stepanych! - she says, turning pale and clenching her arms on her chest. - Nikolai Stepanych! I can't live like this longer! I can not! For the sake of true God, tell me quickly, this minute: what should I do? Are you telling me what to do?

"What can I say?" - I’m perplexed. -- I can't do anything.

"Say, I beg you!" she continues, gasping and trembling with her whole body. - I swear to you that I cannot live like this longer! I have no strength!

She falls on a chair and begins to sob. She threw her head back, breaks her arms, stomps her feet; her hat fell off her head and dangles on an elastic band, her hairstyle is disheveled.

-- Help me! Help! - she begs. - I can’t take longer!

She takes a handkerchief from her travel purse and with it pulls out several letters, which fall from her knees to the floor. I pick them up from the floor and on one of them I recognize Mikhail Fedorovich’s handwriting and accidentally read a piece of some word "passion...".

"I can't tell you anything, Katya", I say.

-- Help! - she sobs, grabbing my hand and kissing her. - After all, you are my father, my only friend! After all, you are smart, educated, and have lived a long time! You were a teacher! Say: what should I do?

--Honorably, Katya: I don’t know...

I am confused, embarrassed, touched by sobs and can barely stand on my feet.

"come on, Katya, have breakfast", I say, smiling strainedly. -Will cry!

And immediately I add in a fallen voice:

"I’ll be gone soon, Katya...

"at least one word, at least one word!" she cries, stretching out her hands to me. - - What should I do?

--Weirdo, right... -- I mutter. -- I don't understand! So smart and suddenly - on you! I burst into tears...

There is silence. Katya straightens her hair, puts on a hat, then crumples letters and puts them in her purse - and all this silently and slowly. Her face, chest and gloves are wet with tears, but her facial expression is already dry, stern... I look at her and I'm ashamed that I'm happier than her. I noticed the absence of what fellow philosophers call a common idea in myself only shortly before my death, at the end of my days, but the soul of this poor thing did not know and will not know shelter all her life, all her life!

"Come on, Katya, have breakfast", I say.

"No, thank you", she replies coldly.

Another minute passes in silence.

"I don’t like Kharkov," I say. -- It’s very gray. Some gray city.

-- Yeah, I guess... Ugly... I'll be here for a while... By passing. I'll leave today.

-- Where to?

--To Crimea... that is, to the Caucasus.

-- So. For a long time?

-- Don't know.

Katya gets up and, smiling coldly, without looking at me, extends her hand to me.

I want to ask: "So you won’t be at my funeral?" But she doesn’t look at me, her hand is cold, like someone else’s. I silently walk her to the door... So she came out from me, walking along a long corridor, without looking back. She knows I'm looking after her and will probably look back at the turn.

No, I didn't look back. The black dress flashed for the last time, the steps died down... Farewell my treasure!