When Lavretsky reached home, he was met at the door of the drawing-room
by a tall, thin man, in a thread-bare blue coat, with a wrinkled, but
lively face, with disheveled grey whiskers, a long straight nose, and
small fiery eyes. This was Mihalevitch, who had been his friend at the
university. Lavretsky did not at first recognise him, but embraced him
warmly directly he told his name.
They had not met since their Moscow days. Torrents of exclamations and
questions followed; long-buried recollections were brought to light. Hurriedly smoking pipe after pipe, tossing off tea at a gulp, and gesticulating with his long hands, Mihalevitch related his adventures to Lavretsky; there was nothing very inspiriting in them, he could not boast of success in his undertakings--but he was constantly laughing a hoarse, nervous laugh. A month previously he had received a position in the private counting-house of a spirit-tax contractor, two hundred and fifty miles from the town of O-----, and hearing of Lavretsky returned from abroad he had turned out of his way so as to see his old friend. Mihalevitch and talked as impetuously as in his youth; made as much noise and was as effervescent as of old. Lavretsky was about to acquaint him with his new position, but Mihalevitch interrupted him, muttering hurriedly, "I have heard, my dear fellow, I have heard--who could have anticipated it?" and at once turned the conversation upon general subjects.
"I must set off to-morrow, my dear fellow," he observed; "to-day if you
will excuse it, we will sit up late. I want above all to know what you
are like, what are your views and convictions, what you have become, what life has taught you." (Mihalevitch still preserved the phraseology of 1830.) "As for me, I have changed in much; the waves of life have broken over my breast--who was it said that?--though in what is important, essential I have not changed; I believe as of old in the good, the true: but I do not only believe--I have faith now, yes, I have faith, faith. Listen, you know I write verses; there is no poetry in them, but there is truth. I will read you aloud my last poem; I have expressed my truest convictions in it. Listen." Mihalevitch fell to reading his poem: it was rather long, and ended with the following lines:
"I gave myself to new feelings with all my heart, And my soul became as a child's! And I have burnt all I adored And now adore all that I burnt."
As he uttered the two last lines, Mihalevitch all but shed tears; a
slight spasm--the sign of deep emotion--passed over his wide mouth, his
ugly face lighted up. Lavretsky listened, and listened to him--and the
spirit of antagonism was aroused in him; he was irritated by the
ever-ready enthusiasm of the Moscow student, perpetually at
boiling-point. Before a quarter of an hour had elapsed a heated argument
had broken out between them, one of these endless arguments, of which
only Russians are capable. After a separation of many years spent in two
different worlds, with no clear understanding of the other's ideas or
even of their own, catching at words and replying only in words, they
disputed about the most abstract subjects, and they disputed as though
it were a matter of life and death for both: they shouted and
vociferated so that every one in the house was startled, and poor Lemm, who had locked himself up in his room directly after Mihalevitch arrived, was bewildered, and began even to feel vaguely alarmed.
"What are you after all? a pessimist?" cried Mihalevitch at one o'clock
in the night.
"Are pessimists usually like this?" replied Lavretsky. "They are
usually all pale and sickly--would you like me to lift you with one
hand?"
"Well, if you are not a pessimist you are a scepteec, that's still
worse." Mihalevitch's talk had a strong flavour of his mother-country, Little Russia. "And what right have you to be a scepteec? You have had ill-luck in life, let us admit; that was not your fault; you were born with a passionate loving heart, and you were unnaturally kept out of the society of women: the first woman you came across was bound to deceive you."
"She deceived you too," observed Lavretsky grimly.
"Granted, granted; I was the tool of destiny in it--what nonsense I
talk, though--there is no such thing as destiny; it is an old habit of
expressing things inexactly. But what does that prove?"
"It proves this, that they distorted me from my childhood."