The Man Who Was Afraid

“It must be a good book, since it worked you up in this way,” said Foma, smiling.

“I did not sleep. I read all night long. Just think of it: you read – and it seems to you that the gates of another kingdom are thrown open before you. And the people there are different, and their language is different, everything different! Life itself is different there.”

“I don’t like this,” said Foma, dissatisfied. “That’s all fiction, deceit; so is the theatre. The merchants are ridiculed there. Are they really so stupid? Of course! Take your father, for example.”

“The theatre and the school are one and the same, Foma,” said Luba, instructively. “The merchants used to be like this. And what deceit can there be in books?”

“Just as in fairy – tales, nothing is real.”

“You are wrong! You have read no books; how can you judge? Books are precisely real. They teach you how to live.”

“Come, come!” Foma waved his hand. “Drop it; no good will come out of your books! There, take your father, for example, does he read books? And yet he is clever! I looked at him today and envied him. His relations with everybody are so free, so clever, he has a word for each and every one. You can see at once that whatever he should desire he is sure to attain.”

“What is he striving for?” exclaimed Luba. “Nothing but money. But there are people that want happiness for all on earth, and to gain this end they work without sparing themselves; they suffer and perish! How can my father be compared with these?”

“You need not compare them. They evidently like one thing, while your father likes another.”

“They do not like anything!”

How’s that?

“They want to change everything.”

“So they do strive for something?” said Foma, thoughtfully. “They do wish for something?”

“They wish for happiness for all!” cried Luba, hotly. “I can’t understand this,” said Foma, nodding his head. “Who cares there for my happiness? And then again, what happiness can they give me, since I, myself, do not know as yet what I want? No, you should have rather looked at those that were at the banquet.”

“Those are not men!” announced Luba, categorically.

“I do not know what they are in your eyes, but you can see at once that they know their place. A clever, easy-going lot.”

“Ah, Foma!” exclaimed Luba, vexed. “You understand nothing! Nothing agitates you! You are an idler.”

“Now, that’s going too far! I’ve simply not had time enough to see where I am.”

“You are simply an empty man,” said Luba, resolutely and firmly.

“You were not within my soul,” replied Foma, calmly. “You cannot know my thoughts.”

“What is there that you should think of?” said Luba, shrugging her shoulders.

“So? First of all, I am alone. Secondly, I must live. Don’t I understand that it is altogether impossible for me to live as I am now? I do not care to be made the laughing-stock of others. I cannot even speak to people. No, nor can I think.” Foma concluded his words and smiled confusedly.

“It is necessary to read, to study,” Luba advised him convincingly, pacing up and down the room.

“Something is stirring within my soul,” Foma went on, not looking at her, as though speaking to himself; “but I cannot tell what it is. I see, for instance, that whatever my godfather says is clever and reasonable. But that does not attract me. The other people are by far more interesting to me.”

“You mean the aristocrats?” asked Luba.

“Yes.”

“That’s just the place for you!” said Luba, with a smile of contempt. “Eh, you! Are they men? Do they have souls?”

“How do you know them? You are not acquainted with them.”

“And the books? Have I not read books about them?”

The maid brought in the samovar, and the conversation was interrupted. Luba made tea in silence while Foma looked at her and thought of Medinskaya. He was wishing to have a talk with her.

“Yes,” said the girl, thoughtfully, “I am growing more and more convinced everyday that it is hard to live. What shall I do? Marry? Whom? Shall I marry a merchant who will do nothing but rob people all his life, nothing but drink and play cards? A savage? I do not want it! I want to be an individual. I am such, for I know how wrong the construction of life is. Shall I study? My father will not allow this. Oh Lord! Shall I run away? I have not enough courage. What am I to do?”

She clasped her hands and bowed her head over the table.

“If you knew but how repulsive everything is. There is not a living soul around here. Since my mother died, my father drove everyone away. Some went off to study. Lipa, too, left us. She writes me:

‘Read.’ Ah, I am reading! I am reading!’ she exclaimed, with despair in her voice, and after a moment’s silence she went on sadly:

“Books do not contain what the heart needs most, and there’s much I cannot understand in them. And then, I feel weary to be reading all the time alone, alone! I want to speak to a man, but there is none to speak to! I feel disgusted. We live but once, and it is high time for me to live, and yet there is not a soul! Wherefore shall I live? Lipa tells me: ‘Read and you will understand it.’ I want bread and she gives me a stone. I understand what one must do – one must stand up for what he loves and believes. He must fight for it.”

And she concluded, uttering something like a moan:

“But I am alone! Whom shall I fight? There are no enemies here. There are no men! I live here in a prison!”

Foma listened to her words, fixedly examining the fingers of his hand; he felt that in her words was some great distress, but he could not understand her. And when she became silent, depressed and sad, he found nothing to tell her save a few words that were like a reproach:

“There, you yourself say that books are worthless to you, and yet you instruct me to read.”

She looked into his face, and anger flashed in her eyes.

“Oh, how I wish that all these torments would awaken within you, the torments that constantly oppress me. That your thoughts, like mine, would rob you of your sleep, that you, too, would be disgusted with everything, and with yourself as well! I despise every one of you. I hate you!”

All aflush, she looked at him so angrily and spoke with so much spitefulness, that in his astonishment he did not even feel offended by her. She had never before spoken to him in such manner.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked her.

“I hate you, too! You, what are you? Dead, empty; how will you live? What will you give to mankind?” she said with malice, in a low voice.

“I’ll give nothing; let them strive for it themselves,” answered Foma, knowing that these words would augment her anger.

“Unfortunate creature!” exclaimed the girl with contempt.

The assurance and the power of her reproaches involuntarily compelled Foma to listen attentively to her spiteful words; he felt there was common sense in them. He even came nearer to her, but she, enraged and exasperated, turned away from him and became silent.

It was still light outside, and the reflection of the setting sun lay still on the branches of the linden-trees before the windows, but the room was already filled with twilight, and the sideboard, the clock and the cupboard seemed to have grown in size. The huge pendulum peeped out every moment from beneath the glass of the clock-case, and flashing dimly, was hiding with a weary sound now on the right side, now on the left. Foma looked at the pendulum and he began to feel awkward and lonesome. Luba arose and lighted the lamp which was hanging over the table. The girl’s face was pale and stern.

“You went for me,” said Foma, reservedly. “What for? I can’t understand.”

“I don’t want to speak to you!” replied Luba, angrily.