When Lavrétzky reached home, he was met on the threshold of the drawing-room by a tall, thin man, in a threadbare blue coat, with frowzy grey side-whiskers, a long, straight nose, and small, inflamed eyes. This was Mikhalévitch, his former comrade at the university. Lavrétzky did not recognise him at first, but embraced him warmly as soon as he mentioned his name. They had not seen each other since the Moscow days. There was a shower of exclamations, of questions; long-smothered memories came forth into the light of day. Hurriedly smoking pipe after pipe, drinking down tea in gulps, and flourishing his long arms, Mikhalévitch narrated his adventures to Lavrétzky; there was nothing very cheerful about them, he could not boast of success in his enterprises,—but he laughed incessantly, with a hoarse, nervous laugh. A month previously, he had obtained a situation in the private counting-house of a wealthy distiller, about three hundred versts from the town of O * * *, and, on learning of Lavrétzky's return from abroad, he had turned aside from his road, in order to see his old friend. Mikhalévitch talked as abruptly as in his younger days, was as noisy and effervescent as ever. Lavrétzky was about to allude to his circumstances, but Mikhalévitch interrupted him, hastily muttering: "I've heard, brother, I've heard about it,—who could have anticipated it?"—and immediately turned the conversation into the region of general comments.
"I, brother,"—he said:—"must leave thee to-morrow; to-day, thou must excuse me—we will go to bed late—I positively must find out what are thy opinions, convictions, what sort of a person thou hast become, what life has taught thee." (Mikhalévitch still retained the phraseology of the '30s.) "So far as I myself am concerned, I have changed in many respects, brother: the billows of life have fallen upon my breast,—who the dickens was it that said that?—although, in important, essential points, I have not changed; I believe, as of yore, in the good, in the truth; but I not only believe,—I am now a believer, yes—I am a believer, a religious believer. Hearken, thou knowest that I write verses; there is no poetry in them, but there is truth. I will recite to thee my last piece: in it I have given expression to my most sincere convictions. Listen."—Mikhalévitch began to recite a poem; it was rather long, and wound up with the following lines:
| "To new feeling I have surrendered myself with all my heart, I have become like a child in soul: And I have burned all that I worshipped. I have worshipped all that I burned." |
As he declaimed these last two lines, Mikhalévitch was on the verge of tears; slight convulsive twitchings, the signs of deep feeling—flitted across his broad lips, his ugly face lighted up. Lavrétzky listened and listened to him; the spirit of contradiction began to stir within him: the ever-ready, incessantly-seething enthusiasm of the Moscow student irritated him. A quarter of an hour had not elapsed, before a dispute flared up between them, one of those interminable disputes, of which only Russians are capable. After a separation of many years' duration, spent in two widely-different spheres, understanding clearly neither other people's thoughts nor their own,—cavilling at words and retorting with mere words, they argued about the most abstract subjects,—and argued as though it were a matter of life and death to both of them: they shouted and yelled so, that all the people in the house took fright, and poor Lemm, who, from the moment of Mikhalévitch's arrival, had locked himself up in his room, became bewildered, and began, in a confused way, to be afraid.
"But what art thou after this? disillusioned?"—shouted Mikhalévitch at one o'clock in the morning.
"Are there any such disillusioned people?"—retorted Lavrétzky:—"they are all poor and ill,—and I'll pick thee up with one hand, shall I?"
"Well, if not a disillusioned man, then a sceptuik, and that is still worse." (Mikhalévitch's pronunciation still smacked of his native Little Russia.) "And what right hast thou to be a sceptic? Thou hast had bad luck in life, granted; that was no fault of thine: thou wert born with a passionate, loving soul, and thou wert forcibly kept away from women: the first woman that came in thy way was bound to deceive thee."
"And she did deceive me,"—remarked Lavrétzky, gloomily.
"Granted, granted; I was the instrument of fate there,—but what nonsense am I talking?—there's no fate about it; it's merely an old habit of expressing myself inaccurately. But what does that prove?"
"It proves, that they dislocated me in my childhood."