Fifty-Two Stories

Such people as Mr. Bubentsov understand nothing about art and have little interest in it, but when they happen to meet up with giftlessness and mediocrity, they are implacable, merciless. They are ready to forgive anyone you like, only not Makar, this wretched misfit whose manuscripts are lying in a trunk. The gardener broke an old ficus and has let many expensive plants rot; the general does nothing and lives off of other people’s work; Mr. Bubentsov, when he was justice of the peace, heard cases only once a month and, in hearing them, stammered, confused the laws, and poured out drivel, but all this is forgiven, goes unnoticed; but not to notice the giftless Makar, who writes mediocre poetry and stories, to pass him over in silence without saying something offensive—is impossible. The general’s daughter-in-law slaps her maids in the face and gets as foul-mouthed as a washerwoman during card games, the priest’s wife never pays her card-playing debts, the landowner Flyugin stole a dog from the landowner Sivobrazov—nobody cares. But the fact that Our Province recently returned a third-rate story to Makar is known to the whole district, and gives rise to mockery, long conversations, opprobrium, and instead of Makar Denisych he is now called Makarka.

If there’s something wrong with his writing, they don’t try to explain why it’s “wrong,” they simply say:

“Again that son of a bitch wrote some rubbish!”

Makar is prevented from enjoying the spring by the thought that they do not understand him, do not wish to and cannot understand him. For some reason it seems to him that if they were to understand him, everything would be wonderful. But how can they understand whether he is talented or not, if no one in the whole district reads anything, or else they read in such a way that it would be better not to read at all. How instill in General Stremoukhov that that little French piece is a worthless, flat, banal, hackneyed little piece, how instill it in him, if he has never read anything else but such flat, worthless little pieces?

And how the women annoy Makar!

“Ah, Makar Denisych!” they usually say to him. “What a pity you weren’t at the marketplace today! If you’d seen how comically those two peasants fought, you’d certainly have written about it!”

All this is trifles, of course, and a philosopher would pay no attention, would disregard it, but Makar feels as if he’s on hot coals. His soul is filled with a feeling of loneliness, orphanhood, anguish, the same anguish that is experienced only by very lonely people and great sinners. Never, not once in his life, has he stood arms akimbo the way the gardener stands. Only rarely, maybe once in five years, somewhere in the forest, or on the road, or on a train, meeting another misfit as wretched as himself, and looking him in the eye, does he suddenly revive for a moment, and the other man revives as well. They talk for a long time, argue, admire, praise, laugh, so that, looking at them, you might take them for madmen.

But usually even these rare moments do not come without poison. As if for a laugh, Makar and the wretched fellow he meets deny each other’s talent, do not accept each other, envy, hate, become vexed, and finally part as enemies. And so their youth wears out, melts away, joyless, loveless, friendless, without inner peace, and without all that sullen Makar so loves to describe in the evenings, in moments of inspiration.

And with youth spring also passes.

1886

A NIGHTMARE

A PERMANENT MEMBER of the local committee on peasant affairs, Kunin, a young man of about thirty, who had just come back from Petersburg to his native Borisovo, first of all sent a mounted messenger to the village of Sinkovo for the priest there, Father Yakov Smirnov.

Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.

“Very glad to make your acquaintance!” said Kunin, meeting him in the front hall. “I’ve been living and serving here for a year now, I think it’s time we became acquainted. Kindly come in! But…you’re so young!” Kunin was surprised. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight, sir…,” Father Yakov replied, weakly shaking the proffered hand and blushing for some reason.

Kunin took the guest to his study and began to examine him.

“What a crude, peasant woman’s face!” he thought.