IV

Only in the evening, past seven, did I find him at home. To my surprise, he had visitors—Alexei Nilych, and another gentleman I was half acquainted with, a certain Shigalyov, the brother of Virginsky's wife.

This Shigalyov must already have spent about two months in our town; I do not know where he came from; the only thing I had heard about him was that he had published some article in a progressive Petersburg magazine. Virginsky introduced us by chance in the street. Never in my life have I seen a more grim, gloomy, glowering face on a man. He looked as if he were expecting the destruction of the world, and not just sometime, according to prophecies which might not be fulfilled, but quite definitely, round about morning, the day after tomorrow, at ten twenty-five sharp. Incidentally, we said almost nothing then, but only shook hands, looking like a pair of conspirators. I was struck most of all by the unnatural size of his ears—long, broad, and thick, sticking out somehow peculiarly. His movements were clumsy and slow. If Liputin ever did dream that a phalanstery might be realized in our province, this man was sure to know the day and hour when it would come about. He made a sinister impression on me; meeting him now at Shatov's, I was surprised, all the more so in that Shatov generally had no love of visitors.

Even from the stairs they could be heard talking very loudly, all three at once, and apparently arguing; but as soon as I appeared, they all fell silent. They had been arguing standing up, and now suddenly they all sat down, so that I, too, had to sit down. The stupid silence would not get broken for about three full minutes. Shigalyov, though he recognized me, pretended he did not know me—certainly not from hostility, but just so. Alexei Nilych and I bowed slightly to each other, but silently, and for some reason did not shake hands. Shigalyov finally began looking at me sternly and gloweringly, in the most naive conviction that I would suddenly get up and leave. Finally, Shatov rose from his chair, and everyone else suddenly jumped up. They walked out without saying good-bye; only Shigalyov, already in the doorway, said to Shatov, who was seeing them out:

"Remember, you're obliged to report."

"I spit on your reports, and the devil if I'm obliged to anybody." Shatov saw him out and fastened the door with a hook.

"Snipe!" he said, glancing at me and grinning somehow crookedly.

His face was angry, and I felt it strange that he had begun talking. Usually, whenever I had come to see him before (very rarely, by the way), he would sit glowering in the corner, responding angrily, and only after a long time would become quite animated and begin talking with pleasure. On the other hand, each time he said good-bye, he would unfailingly glower again and let you out as if he were getting rid of a personal enemy.

"I had tea yesterday with this Alexei Nilych," I remarked. "He seems to have gone crazy over atheism."

"Russian atheism has never gone further than a pun," Shatov growled, replacing the burnt-down candle with a new one.

"No, the man doesn't seem to be a punster to me; he seems unable to speak even plainly, to say nothing of punning."

"They're paper people; it all comes from lackeyishness of thinking,"^[55] Shatov observed calmly, sitting down in the corner on a chair and placing both palms on his knees.

"And there's hatred there, too," he said, after a moment's silence. "They'd be the first to be terribly unhappy if Russia somehow suddenly got reconstructed, even if it was in their own way, and somehow suddenly became boundlessly rich and happy. They'd have no one to hate then, no one to spit on, nothing to jeer at! All that's there is an endless animal hatred of Russia that has eaten into their organism... And there are no tears invisible to the world under the visible laughter!^[56] Nothing more false has ever been said in Russia than this phrase about invisible tears!" he cried out, almost with fury.

"Well, God knows what it's all about!" I laughed.

"And you, you're a 'moderate liberal,’” Shatov also grinned. "You know," he suddenly picked up, "maybe that was just silly talk about 'lackeyishness of thinking'; you'll probably say to me at once: 'It's you who were born of a lackey, but I'm no lackey.’”

"Not at all... how could you think such a thing!"

"Don't apologize, I'm not afraid of you. Once I was simply born of a lackey, but now I've become a lackey myself, just like you. Our Russian liberal is first of all a lackey and is only looking for someone's boots to polish."

"What boots? What kind of allegory is that?"

"I wouldn't call it an allegory! You're laughing, I see... Stepan Trofimovich was right to say that I'm lying under a stone, crushed but not crushed to death, I'm just writhing—it's a good comparison."

"Stepan Trofimovich assures us that you've gone crazy over the Germans," I went on laughing. "In fact, we did filch something or other from the Germans and stick it in our pocket."

"We took twenty kopecks, and gave away a hundred roubles of our own."

We were silent for about a minute.

"No, he got it from lying there in America."

"Who? Got what from lying there?"

"Kirillov, I mean. He and I spent four months there, lying on the floor of a hut."

"Have you really been to America?" I was surprised. "You never talk about it."

"What's there to tell? The year before last, three of us went to the American States on an emigrant steamer, on our last pennies, 'in order to try the life of the American worker for ourselves, and thus by personal experience to test on ourselves the condition of man in his hardest social position.^[57] That was the goal we set out with."

"Lord!" I laughed, "but for that it would have been better to go somewhere in our province at harvest time, if you wanted to 'test by personal experience'—why on earth go to America!"

"We got hired to work there for an exploiter; six of us Russians were gathered there in all—students, even landowners from their estates, even officers were there, all with the same grand purpose. So we worked, got wet, suffered, wore ourselves out, and finally Kirillov and I left—got sick, couldn't stand it anymore. Our employer-exploiter cheated us when he paid us off; instead of thirty dollars as agreed, he paid me eight and him fifteen; they also beat us there, more than once.

So, without work then, Kirillov and I spent four months lying side by side on the floor in some little town; he thought of one thing, and I of another."

"Can it be that your employer really beat you? In America? How you must have cursed at him!"

"Not in the least. On the contrary, Kirillov and I decided at once that 'we Russians are mere kids next to Americans, and that one must be born in America, or at least live for long years with Americans, to be on the same level with them.'^[58] Not only that: when they asked us to pay a dollar for something worth a penny, we paid it, not just with pleasure, but even with enthusiasm. We praised everything: spiritualism, lynching, six-shooters, hoboes. Once, on a train, a man went into my pocket, took my hairbrush, and began brushing his hair with it; Kirillov and I just looked at each other and decided that it was good and we liked it very much..."

"Strange that with us such things not only enter our heads, but even get carried out," I observed.

"Paper people," Shatov repeated.