“I was told that he mentioned you in the letter he left. Was it true?”
“Yes,” Mashurina replied after a pause.
“What a splendid chap he was! He didn’t fall into the right rut somehow. He was about as fitted to be a revolutionist as I am! Do you know what he really was? The idealist of realism. Do you understand me?”
Mashurina flung him a rapid glance. She did not understand him and did not want to understand him. It seemed to her impertinent that he should compare himself to Nejdanov. “Let him brag!” she thought, though he was not bragging at all, but rather depreciating himself, according to his own ideas.
“Some fellow called Silin sought me out; Nejdanov, it seems, had left a letter for him too. Well, he wanted to know if Alexai had left any papers, but we hunted through all his things and found nothing. He must have burned everything, even his poems. Did you know that he wrote verses? I’m sorry they were destroyed; there must have been some good things among them. They all vanished with him—became lost in the general whirl, dead and gone for ever. Nothing was left except the memories of his friends—until they, too, vanish in their turn!”
Paklin ceased.
“Do you remember the Sipiagins?” he began again; “those respectable, patronising, loathsome swells are now at the very height of power and glory.” Mashurina, of course, did not remember the Sipiagins, but Paklin hated them so much that he could not keep from abusing them on every possible occasion. “They say there’s such a high tone in their house! they’re always talking about virtue! It’s a bad sign, I think. Reminds me rather of an over-scented sick room. There must be some bad smell to conceal. Poor Alexai! It was they who ruined him!”
“And what is Solomin doing?” Mashurina asked. She had suddenly ceased wishing to hear Paklin talk about him.
“Solomin!” Paklin exclaimed. “He’s a clever chap! turned out well too. He’s left the old factory and taken all the best men with him. There was one fellow there called Pavel—could do anything; he’s taken him along too. They say he has a small factory of his own now, somewhere near Perm, run on cooperative lines. He’s all right! he’ll stick to anything he undertakes. Got some grit in him! His strength lies in the fact that he doesn’t attempt to cure all the social ills with one blow. What a rum set we are to be sure, we Russians! We sit down quietly and wait for something or someone to come along and cure us all at once; heal all our wounds, pull out all our diseases, like a bad tooth. But who or what is to work this magic spell, Darwinism, the land, the Archbishop Perepentiev, a foreign war, we don’t know and don’t care, but we must have our tooth pulled out for us! It’s nothing but mere idleness, sluggishness, want of thinking. Solomin, on the other hand, is different; he doesn’t go in for pulling teeth—he knows what he’s about!”
Mashurina gave an impatient wave of the hand, as though she wished to dismiss the subject.