The Adolescent

“Be so kind,” a young woman added at once. She was rather pretty, very modestly dressed, and having bowed slightly to me, she at once went out. This was his wife, and it seemed by the look of it that she, too, had been arguing, but had now gone to nurse the baby. The other two ladies remained in the room—one very short, about twenty years old, in a black dress, and also not a bad-looking sort, while the other was about thirty, dry and sharp-eyed. They sat, listened very much, but did not enter into the conversation.

As far as the men were concerned, they were all standing, and the only ones seated, apart from me, were Kraft and Vasin. Efim pointed them out to me at once, because I was now seeing Kraft as well for the first time in my life. I got up from my seat and went over to make their acquaintance. I’ll never forget Kraft’s face: no special beauty, but something as if all too meek and delicate, though personal dignity showed everywhere. Twenty-six years old, rather lean, of above-average height, blond, his face grave but soft; overall there was something gentle in him. And yet, if you had asked me, I would never have traded my maybe even very banal face for his face, which I found so attractive. There was something in his face that I wouldn’t want to have in mine, something all too calm in a moral sense, something like a sort of secret, unconscious pride. However, I was probably unable to judge so literally then; it seems to me now that I judged that way then, that is, after the event.

“I’m very glad you’ve come,” said Kraft. “I have a letter that concerns you. We’ll sit here a while and then go to my place.”

Dergachev was of medium height, broad-shouldered, very dark-haired, with a big beard; in his glance once could see quickwittedness and restraint in everything, a certain constant wariness; though he was mainly silent, he was obviously in control of the conversation. Vasin’s physiognomy did not impress me very much, though I had heard he was extremely intelligent: blond, with big light gray eyes, a very open face, but at the same time there was something as if excessively hard in it: one sensed little sociability, but his gaze was decidedly intelligent, more intelligent than Dergachev’s, more profound—the most intelligent in the room; however, maybe I’m exaggerating it all now. Of the rest, I recall only two faces among all those young men: one tall, swarthy man with black side-whiskers, who talked a lot, about twenty-seven years old, a teacher or something of that sort, and also a young fellow of my age, in a long Russian vest—with a wrinkle in his face, taciturn, a listener. He turned out later to be of peasant stock.

“No, that’s not the way to put it,” began the teacher with black side-whiskers, who was the most excited of them all, obviously taking up the previous argument again. “I’m not saying anything about mathematical proofs, but this idea, which I’m ready to believe even without mathematical proofs . . .”

“Wait, Tikhomirov,” Dergachev interrupted loudly, “the latest arrivals don’t understand. This, you see,” he suddenly turned to me alone (and, I confess, if his intention was to examine me as a newcomer or make me speak, the method was very clever on his part; I immediately sensed it and prepared myself ), “this, you see, is Mr. Kraft, whose character and solid convictions are quite well-known to us all. Starting from a rather ordinary fact, he has arrived at a rather extraordinary conclusion, which has surprised everybody. He has deduced that the Russian people are a second-rate people . . .”

“Third-rate,” someone cried.

“. . . second-rate, whose fate is to serve merely as material for a more noble race, and not to have its own independent role in the destinies of mankind. In view of this possibly correct deduction of his, Mr. Kraft has come to the conclusion that any further activity of any Russian man should be paralyzed by this idea, so to speak, that everyone should drop their hands and . . .”

“Permit me, Dergachev, that’s not the way to put it,” Tikhomirov again picked up impatiently (Dergachev yielded at once). “In view of the fact that Kraft has done serious research, has deduced deductions on the basis of physiology, which he considers mathematical, and has killed maybe two years on his idea (which I would quite calmly accept a priori), in view of that, that is, in view of Kraft’s anxieties and seriousness, this matter presents itself as a phenomenon. A question arises from all this which Kraft cannot comprehend, and that is what we should occupy ourselves with, that is, Kraft’s incomprehension, because it is a phenomenon. We should decide whether this is a clinical phenomenon, as a singular case, or is a property that may normally be repeated in others; this is of interest in view of the common cause. I shall believe Kraft about Russia and even say that I am perhaps also glad; if this idea were adopted by everyone, it would unbind hands and free many from patriotic prejudice . . .”