Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

mixed up⁠ ⁠… parties, struggle, some robbing others, ostracism, a sort of banishment by administrative order⁠ ⁠… usurpers⁠ ⁠… favorites⁠ ⁠… there really was confusion⁠—a man jumped forward and drew up his own laws for his own advantage or for his relatives and friends. Then old gods were all mixed up, the oracles answered anything, provided it didn’t apply to the subject. In a word, everything that was clear in life had become unclear: there was no equilibrium, no generally acknowledged truth.⁠ ⁠… A new system was necessary. Clouds covered the sky and there were no stars to steer by.⁠ ⁠… That was why Alcibiades asked what laws should be obeyed; those which prescribe good or bad. Of course, Pericles answered the good. ‘How can I tell which are good? What is the mark, so to speak?’ ‘Obey all! That’s what laws are for!⁠ ⁠…’ ‘That means laws passed by the power of tyrants?’ ‘No, you don’t need to obey those.⁠ ⁠…’ ‘I see, only lawful laws, so to speak. Fine! But suppose the minority coerces the majority to its own advantage, don’t I need to obey those laws?’ ‘Of course not.’ ‘But if the majority coerce the minority, is that contrary to right?⁠ ⁠…’ You see what the young fellow was driving at: he didn’t need external signs, but he showed that he needed to feel in his soul universal truth, the highest truth, so to speak, the truth of life, sanctity.⁠ ⁠… Pericles, you see, hadn’t understood this.⁠ ⁠… Not merely Pericles, the whole country rested on slavery, on past wrong.⁠ ⁠… Religion had dried up, the old sanctity which had consecrated every step, every motion, the whole order, all human relationships⁠—people had ceased to feel it.⁠ ⁠… But Pericles argued around.⁠ ⁠… He didn’t want to confess that their laws had died.⁠ ⁠… He patted the dissolute young fellow on the shoulder with a great deal of condescension and said: ‘Yes, yes.⁠ ⁠… I see you’ve got a head on your shoulders. Years ago we used to settle such hard questions.’⁠ ⁠… Well, Alcibiades saw that Pericles was, so to speak, a recognized authority, was quibbling over trifles, didn’t treat these conflicts as anything alive⁠—and waved his hand. ‘I’m sorry, my dear sir, that I didn’t know you then.⁠ ⁠… Now I’m bored; I’m going to fool along.’

“And that’s what he recommended to me, his former teacher.⁠ ⁠…”

VII

The narrator stopped. The train, which was approaching another station, began to slow down. Petr Petrovich reached out his hand and said, as he took his blue cap with a cockade from the hook:

“I’m going again to get something to eat.⁠ ⁠… I confess, my dear Pavel Semenovich, I don’t see what you’re driving at.⁠ ⁠… Excuse me, it’s not philosophy, and God only knows what you are after. We began with Budnikov. All right, we know him.⁠ ⁠… Now the devil knows who this Rogov is, a worn-out rogue, and now I don’t know whether you’re talking of Xenophon or Alcibiades.⁠ ⁠… Cutting off dogs’ tails.⁠ ⁠… The devil knows what you mean.⁠ ⁠… Kindly allow me to ask how all this concerns me.⁠ ⁠… Just as you wish.⁠ ⁠… I’d better go and get some more vodka.⁠ ⁠…”

He put on his cap, and, holding on to the wall because of the jolting of the train, he went out of the compartment. Just at that moment the fourth passenger on the other upper bench stirred. He had been lying in the shadow, smoking now and then, and he seemed to be interested in the story. He got down, took a seat beside us and said:

“Excuse me, I haven’t the honor of being acquainted, but I couldn’t help hearing your story and it interested me. So, if you have no objections.”

Pavel Semenovich looked at him. He was a cultured man, carefully dressed, with intelligent eyes which looked steadily through a pair of gold glasses which he was constantly adjusting.

“Yes?” said Pavel Semenovich. “I see, you heard this.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes. It interested me.⁠ ⁠… Your point of view, I confess, I don’t understand fully.⁠ ⁠…”

“Really, it wasn’t any too clear.⁠ ⁠… I meant⁠ ⁠… that in reality everything is so related.⁠ ⁠… And this mutual relationship.⁠ ⁠…”

“Presupposes mutual responsibility?”

Pavel Semenovich’s face suddenly beamed with joy.

“There! You understand it?⁠ ⁠… Yes, general.⁠ ⁠… Not before Ivan or Petr.⁠ ⁠… Everything is connected, so to speak.⁠ ⁠… One man carelessly throws away a brandy cork and another slips on it and breaks his leg.”

The new acquaintance listened attentively. Just then Petr Petrovich came back. He had been mistaken as to the place and with an ironical glance at both, he said, as he hung up his cap:

“Well, now⁠—what do you want with a cork?”

“No, Petr Petrovich,” said Pavel Semenovich seriously, “you’re wrong.⁠ ⁠… The question is, so to speak⁠—”

“You find questions everywhere in the simplest things,” said Petr Petrovich. “Don’t bother about me. You’ve got a large enough audience.”

“Go on, please,” said the gentleman with the gold glasses.

“If you wish.⁠ ⁠… I’ll be more than glad, for I’ve got to get it off my mind. I stopped⁠—”

“You stopped,” said Petr Petrovich laughingly, “with Alcibiades.⁠ ⁠… A story, so to speak, from the Ancient Times. Now for the Middle Ages.⁠ ⁠…”

Pavel Semenovich paid no attention to this sally and turned to the new member of the group:

“You see how it was. The thing was this way: Gavrilo was married and living by himself.⁠ ⁠… In M. Budnikov’s table still lay the ticket with the two lines.⁠ ⁠… There were ugly rumors about it and, of course, they were exaggerated. Gavrilo was the only one who didn’t know of them. He kept on working as before, did all he could, and tried.⁠ ⁠… He was a muscular symphony in performance, with his eyes full of general satisfaction and good humor.⁠ ⁠…

“And then Rogov suddenly turned up. He was walking along the path by the yard; he stopped, thought a moment, and called Gavrilo.

“He was a good-hearted Russian.⁠ ⁠… He had pushed Rogov away a little while before, but afterwards he thought no more of it. ‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘Come here, it’s something that concerns you. You’ll thank me for it.’

“I’ll confess, something warned me. I felt like