A brief silence followed.
‘I am of opinion, my dear sir,’ began Potugin again, ‘that we are not only indebted to civilisation for science, art, and law, but that even the very feeling for beauty and poetry is developed and strengthened under the influence of the same civilisation, and that the so-called popular, simple, unconscious creation is twaddling and rubbishy. Even in Homer there are traces of a refined and varied civilisation; love itself is enriched by it. The Slavophils would cheerfully hang me for such a heresy, if they were not such chicken-hearted creatures; but I will stick up for my own ideas all the same; and however much they press Madame Kohanovsky and “The swarm of bees at rest” upon me,—I can’t stand the odour of that triple extrait de mougik Russe, as I don’t belong to the highest society, which finds it absolutely necessary to assure itself from time to time that it has not turned quite French, and for whose exclusive benefit this literature en cuir de Russie is manufactured. Try reading the raciest, most “popular” passages from the “Bees” to a common peasant—a real one; he’ll think you’re repeating him a new spell against fever or drunkenness. I repeat, without civilisation there’s not even poetry. If you want to get a clear idea of the poetic ideal of the uncivilised Russian, you should turn up our ballads, our legends. To say nothing of the fact that love is always presented as the result of witchcraft, of sorcery, and produced by some philtre, to say nothing of our so-called epic literature being the only one among all the European and Asiatic literatures—the only one, observe, which does not present any typical pair of lovers—unless you reckon Vanka-Tanka as such; and of the Holy Russian knight always beginning his acquaintance with his destined bride by beating her “most pitilessly” on her white body, because “the race of women is puffed up”! all that I pass over; but I should like to call your attention to the artistic form of the young hero, the jeune premier, as he was depicted by the imagination of the primitive, uncivilised Slav. Just fancy him a minute; the jeune premier enters; a cloak he has worked himself of sable, back-stitched along every seam, a sash of seven-fold silk girt close about his armpits, his fingers hidden away under his hanging sleevelets, the collar of his coat raised high above his head, from before, his rosy face no man can see, nor, from behind, his little white neck; his cap is on one ear, while on his feet are boots of morocco, with points as sharp as a cobbler’s awl, and the heels peaked like nails. Round the points an egg can be rolled, and a sparrow can fly under the heels. And the young hero advances with that peculiar mincing gait by means of which our Alcibiades, Tchivilo Plenkovitch, produced such a striking, almost medical, effect on old women and young girls, the same gait which we see in our loose-limbed waiters, that cream, that flower of Russian dandyism, that ne plus ultra of Russian taste. This I maintain without joking; a sack-like gracefulness, that’s an artistic ideal. What do you think, is it a fine type? Does it present many materials for painting, for sculpture? And the beauty who fascinates the young hero, whose “face is as red as the blood of the hare”?... But I think you’re not listening to me?’
Litvinov started. He had not, in fact, heard what Potugin was saying; he kept thinking, persistently thinking of Irina, of his last interview with her....
‘I beg your pardon, Sozont Ivanitch,’ he began, ‘but I’m going to attack you again with my former question about ... about Madame Ratmirov.’
Potugin folded up his newspaper and put it in his pocket.
‘You want to know again how I came to know her?’
‘No, not exactly. I should like to hear your opinion ... on the part she played in Petersburg. What was that part, in reality?’
‘I really don’t know what to say to you, Grigory Mihalitch; I was brought into rather intimate terms with Madame Ratmirov ... but quite accidentally, and not for long. I never got an insight into her world, and what took place in it remained unknown to me. There was some gossip before me, but as you know, it’s not only in democratic circles that slander reigns supreme among us. Besides I was not inquisitive. I see though,’ he added, after a short silence, ‘she interests you.’
‘Yes; we have twice talked together rather openly. I ask myself, though, is she sincere?’
Potugin looked down. ‘When she is carried away by feeling, she is sincere, like all women of strong passions. Pride too, sometimes prevents her from lying.’