"But you're subjecting me to . . ."
"To what? Innocent simpleton! As if he's not even a man!
Well, now I'll see it all for myself, with my own eyes . . ."
"Let me at least take my hat . . ."
"Here's your wretched little hat, let's go!
He couldn't even choose the fashion tastefully! . . .
She did it . . . She did it after today's . . . it's delirium," Lizaveta Prokofyevna was muttering, dragging the prince with her and not letting go of his arm even for a moment. "Earlier today I defended you, I said aloud that you were a fool, because you didn't come . . . otherwise she wouldn't have written such a witless note!
An improper note!
Improper for a noble, educated, intelligent, intelligent girl! . . .
Hm," she went on, "of course, she herself was vexed that you didn't come, only she didn't reckon that she ought not to write like that to an idiot, because he'd take it literally, which is what happened.
What are you doing eavesdropping?" she cried, catching herself in a slip. "She needs a buffoon like you, it's long since she's seen one, that's why she wants you!
And I'm glad, glad that she's now going to sharpen her teeth on you!
You deserve it.
And she knows how, oh, she does know how! ..."
PART THREE
I
They constantly complain that in our country there are no practical people; that of political people, for example, there are many; of generals there are also many; of various managers, however many you need, you can at once find any sort you like—but of practical people there are none.
At least everybody complains that there are none.
They say that on certain railway lines there are even no decent attendants; to set up a more or less passable administration for some steamship company is, they say, quite impossible.
In one place you hear that on some newly opened line the trains collided or fell off a bridge; in another they write that a train nearly spent the winter in a snowy field: people went on a few hours' journey and got stuck for five days in the snow.
In another they tell about many tons of goods rotting in one place for two or three months, waiting to be transported, and in yet another they claim (though this is even hard to believe) that an administrator, that is, some supervisor, when pestered by some merchant's agent about transporting his goods, instead of transporting the goods, administered one to the agent's teeth, and proceeded to explain his administrative act as the result of "hot temper."
It seems there are so many offices in the government service that it is frightening to think of it; everybody has served, everybody is serving, everybody intends to serve—given such material, you wonder, how can they not make up some sort of decent administration for a steamship company?
To this an extremely simple reply is sometimes given—so simple that it is even hard to believe such an explanation.
True, they say, in our country everybody has served or is serving, and for two hundred years now this has been going on in the best German fashion, from forefathers to great-grandchildren—but it is the serving people who are the most impractical, and it has gone so far that abstractness and lack of practical knowledge were regarded even among civil servants themselves, still recently, as almost the greatest virtues and recommendations.
However, we are wrong to have begun talking about civil servants; in fact, we wanted to talk about practical people.
Here there is no doubt that timidity and a total lack of personal initiative have always been regarded among us as the chiefest and best sign of the practical man—and are so regarded even now.
But why blame only ourselves—if this opinion can be considered an accusation?
Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the best recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man, and at least ninety-nine out of a hundred people (at least that) have always held to that notion, and only perhaps one out of a hundred people has constantly looked and still looks at it differently.
Inventors and geniuses, at the beginning of their careers (and very often at the end as well), have almost always been regarded in society as no more than fools—that is a most routine observation, well known to everyone.
If, for instance, in the course of decades everyone dragged his money to the Lombard and piled up billions there at four percent, then, naturally, when the Lombards ceased to exist and everyone was left to his own initiative, the greater part of those millions ought certainly to have perished in stock-market fever and in the hands of swindlers—decency and decorum even demanded it.
Precisely decorum; if decorous timidity and a decent lack of originality have constituted among us up to now, according to a generally accepted conviction, the inalienable quality of the sensible and respectable man, it would be all too unrespectable and even indecent to change quite so suddenly.
What mother, for instance, tenderly loving her child, would not become frightened and sick with fear if her son or daughter went slightly off the rails: "No, better let him be happy and live in prosperity without originality," every mother thinks as she rocks her baby to sleep.
And our nannies, rocking babies to sleep, from time immemorial have cooed and crooned: "You shall go all dressed in gold, you shall be a general bold!"
And so, even among our nannies, the rank of general was considered the limit of Russian happiness and, therefore, was the most popular national ideal of beautiful, peaceful felicity.
And, indeed, who among us, having done a mediocre job on his exams and served for thirty-five years, could not finally make a general of himself and squirrel away a certain sum with a Lombard?
Thus the Russian man, almost without any effort, finally attained the title of a sensible and practical man.
In essence, the only one among us who cannot make a general of himself is the original—in other words, the troublesome—man.
Perhaps there is some misunderstanding here, but, generally speaking, that seems to be so, and our society has been fully just in defining its ideal of the practical man.
Nevertheless, we have still said much that is superfluous; we wanted, in fact, to say a few clarifying words about our acquaintances the Epanchins.
These people, or at least the more reasoning members of the family, constantly suffered from one nearly general family quality, the direct opposite of those virtues we have discussed above.
Without fully understanding the fact (because it is very difficult to understand), they occasionally suspected all the same that in their family somehow nothing went the way it did with everyone else.
With everyone else things went smoothly, with them unevenly; everyone else rolled along the rails—they constantly went off the rails.
Everyone else became constantly and decorously timid, but they did not.
True, Lizaveta Prokofyevna could even become too frightened, but all the same this was not that decorous social timidity they longed for.
However, perhaps only Lizaveta Prokofyevna was worried: the girls were still young—though very perspicacious and ironic folk—and the general, though he could perspicate (not without effort, however), in difficult cases only said "Hm!" and in the end placed all his hopes in Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
Therefore the responsibility lay with her.
And it was not, for instance, that the family was distinguished by some initiative of their own, or went off the rails by a conscious inclination for originality, which would have been quite improper.
Oh, no!
There was, in reality, nothing of the sort, that is, no consciously set goal, but all the same it came out in the end that the Epanchin family, though very respectable, was still not quite the way all respectable families in general ought to be.
Recently Lizaveta Prokofyevna had begun to find only herself and her "unfortunate" character to blame for everything—which added to her suffering.