No More Learning

In my early youth I was a dreamer; I
loved to hug to my bosom the images--now gloomy, now rainbowhued--which
my restless and eager imagination drew for me. And what is there left to
me of all these? Only such weariness as might be felt after a battle by
night with a phantom--only a confused memory full of regrets. In that
vain contest I have exhausted the warmth of soul and firmness of will
indispensable to an active life. I have entered upon that life after
having already lived through it in thought, and it has become wearisome
and nauseous to me, as the reading of a bad imitation of a book is to
one who has long been familiar with the original.

The events of that evening produced a somewhat deep impression upon me
and excited my nerves. I do not know for certain whether I now believe
in predestination or not, but on that evening I believed in it firmly.
The proof was startling, and I, notwithstanding that I had laughed at
our forefathers and their obliging astrology, fell involuntarily into
their way of thinking. However, I stopped myself in time from following
that dangerous road, and, as I have made it a rule not to reject
anything decisively and not to trust anything blindly, I cast
metaphysics aside and began to look at what was beneath my feet. The
precaution was well-timed. I only just escaped stumbling over something
thick and soft, but, to all appearance, inanimate. I bent down to see
what it was, and, by the light of the moon, which now shone right upon
the road, I perceived that it was a pig which had been cut in two with
a sabre. . . I had hardly time to examine it before I heard the sound of
steps, and two Cossacks came running out of a byway. One of them came up
to me and enquired whether I had seen a drunken Cossack chasing a pig.
I informed him that I had not met the Cossack and pointed to the unhappy
victim of his rabid bravery.

“The scoundrel! ” said the second Cossack. “No sooner does he drink his
fill of chikhir [24] than off he goes and cuts up anything that comes in
his way. Let us be after him, Eremeich, we must tie him up or else”. . .

They took themselves off, and I continued my way with greater caution,
and at length arrived at my lodgings without mishap.

I was living with a certain old Cossack underofficer whom I loved,
not only on account of his kindly disposition, but also, and more
especially, on account of his pretty daughter, Nastya.

Wrapped up in a sheepskin coat she was waiting for me, as usual, by the
wicket gate. The moon illumined her charming little lips, now turned
blue by the cold of the night. Recognizing me she smiled; but I was in
no mood to linger with her.

“Good night, Nastya! ” I said, and passed on.

She was about to make some answer, but only sighed.

I fastened the door of my room after me, lighted a candle, and threw
myself on the bed; but, on that occasion, slumber caused its presence
to be awaited longer than usual. By the time I fell asleep the east was
beginning to grow pale, but I was evidently predestined not to have
my sleep out. At four o’clock in the morning two fists knocked at my
window. I sprang up.

“What is the matter? ”

“Get up--dress yourself! ”

I dressed hurriedly and went out.

“Do you know what has happened? ” said three officers who had come for
me, speaking all in one voice.

They were deadly pale.

“No, what is it? ”

“Vulich has been murdered! ”

I was petrified.

“Yes, murdered! ” they continued. “Let us lose no time and go! ”

“But where to? ”

“You will learn as we go. ”

We set off. They told me all that had happened, supplementing their
story with a variety of observations on the subject of the strange
predestination which had saved Vulich from imminent death half an hour
before he actually met his end.

Vulich had been walking alone along a dark street, and the drunken
Cossack who had cut up the pig had sprung out upon him, and perhaps
would have passed him by without noticing him, had not Vulich stopped
suddenly and said:

“Whom are you looking for, my man? ”


“You! ” answered the Cossack, striking him with his sabre; and he cleft
him from the shoulder almost to the heart. . .

The two Cossacks who had met me and followed the murderer had arrived on
the scene and raised the wounded man from the ground. But he was already
at his last gasp and said these three words only--“he was right! ”

I alone understood the dark significance of those words: they referred
to me. I had involuntarily foretold his fate to poor Vulich. My instinct
had not deceived me; I had indeed read on his changed countenance the
signs of approaching death.

The murderer had locked himself up in an empty hut at the end of the
village; and thither we went. A number of women, all of them weeping,
were running in the same direction; at times a belated Cossack, hastily
buckling on his dagger, sprang out into the street and overtook us at a
run. The tumult was dreadful.

At length we arrived on the scene and found a crowd standing around the
hut, the door and shutters of which were locked on the inside. Groups of
officers and Cossacks were engaged in heated discussions; the women were
shrieking, wailing and talking all in one breath. One of the old
women struck my attention by her meaning looks and the frantic despair
expressed upon her face. She was sitting on a thick plank, leaning her
elbows on her knees and supporting her head with her hands. It was the
mother of the murderer. At times her lips moved. . . Was it a prayer they
were whispering, or a curse?

Meanwhile it was necessary to decide upon some course of action and to
seize the criminal. Nobody, however, made bold to be the first to rush
forward.

I went up to the window and looked in through a chink in the shutter.
The criminal, pale of face, was lying on the floor, holding a pistol in
his right hand. The blood-stained sabre was beside him. His expressive
eyes were rolling in terror; at times he shuddered and clutched at his
head, as if indistinctly recalling the events of yesterday. I could not
read any sign of great determination in that uneasy glance of his, and
I told the major that it would be better at once to give orders to the
Cossacks to burst open the door and rush in, than to wait until the
murderer had quite recovered his senses.

At that moment the old captain of the Cossacks went up to the door and
called the murderer by name. The latter answered back.

“You have committed a sin, brother Ephimych! ” said the captain, “so all
you can do now is to submit. ”

“I will not submit! ” answered the Cossack.

“Have you no fear of God! You see, you are not one of those cursed
Chechenes, but an honest Christian! Come, if you have done it in an
unguarded moment there is no help for it! You cannot escape your fate! ”

“I will not submit! ” exclaimed the Cossack menacingly, and we could hear
the snap of the cocked trigger.

“Hey, my good woman! ” said the Cossack captain to the old woman. “Say a
word to your son--perhaps he will lend an ear to you. . . You see, to go
on like this is only to make God angry. And look, the gentlemen here
have already been waiting two hours. ”

The old woman gazed fixedly at him and shook her head.

“Vasili Petrovich,” said the captain, going up to the major; “he will
not surrender. I know him! If it comes to smashing in the door he will
strike down several of our men. Would it not be better if you ordered
him to be shot? There is a wide chink in the shutter. ”

At that moment a strange idea flashed through my head--like Vulich I
proposed to put fate to the test.

“Wait,” I said to the major, “I will take him alive. ”

Bidding the captain enter into a conversation with the murderer and
setting three Cossacks at the door ready to force it open and rush to my
aid at a given signal, I walked round the hut and approached the fatal
window. My heart was beating violently.

“Aha, you cursed wretch! ” cried the captain. “Are you laughing at us,
eh? Or do you think that we won’t be able to get the better of you? ”

He began to knock at the door with all his might. Putting my eye to the
chink, I followed the movements of the Cossack, who was not expecting an
attack from that direction. I pulled the shutter away suddenly and threw
myself in at the window, head foremost. A shot rang out right over my
ear, and the bullet tore off one of my epaulettes. But the smoke which
filled the room prevented my adversary from finding the sabre which was
lying beside him. I seized him by the arms; the Cossacks burst in; and
three minutes had not elapsed before they had the criminal bound and led
off under escort.

The people dispersed, the officers congratulated me--and indeed there
was cause for congratulation.

After all that, it would hardly seem possible to avoid becoming a
fatalist? But who knows for certain whether he is convinced of anything
or not? And how often is a deception of the senses or an error of the
reason accepted as a conviction! . . . I prefer to doubt everything. Such a
disposition is no bar to decision of character; on the contrary, so far
as I am concerned, I always advance more boldly when I do not know what
is awaiting me. You see, nothing can happen worse than death--and from
death there is no escape.

On my return to the fortress I related to Maksim Maksimych all that
I had seen and experienced; and I sought to learn his opinion on the
subject of predestination.

At first he did not understand the word. I explained it to him as well
as I could, and then he said, with a significant shake of the head:

“Yes, sir, of course! It was a very ingenious trick! However, these
Asiatic pistols often miss fire if they are badly oiled or if you don’t
press hard enough on the trigger. I confess I don’t like the Circassian
carbines either. Somehow or other they don’t suit the like of us: the
butt end is so small, and any minute you may get your nose burnt! On the
other hand, their sabres, now--well, all I need say is, my best respects
to them! ”

Afterwards he said, on reflecting a little:

“Yes, it is a pity about the poor fellow! The devil must have put it
into his head to start a conversation with a drunken man at night!
However, it is evident that fate had written it so at his birth! ”

I could not get anything more out of Maksim Maksimych; generally
speaking, he had no liking for metaphysical disputations.





BOOK V THE THIRD EXTRACT FROM PECHORIN’S DIARY


PRINCESS MARY




CHAPTER I. 11th May.

YESTERDAY I arrived at Pyatigorsk. I have engaged lodgings at the
extreme end of the town, the highest part, at the foot of Mount Mashuk:
during a storm the clouds will descend on to the roof of my dwelling.

This morning at five o’clock, when I opened my window, the room was
filled with the fragrance of the flowers growing in the modest little
front-garden. Branches of bloom-laden bird-cherry trees peep in at my
window, and now and again the breeze bestrews my writing-table with
their white petals. The view which meets my gaze on three sides is
wonderful: westward towers five-peaked Beshtau, blue as “the last cloud
of a dispersed storm,” [25] and northward rises Mashuk, like a shaggy
Persian cap, shutting in the whole of that quarter of the horizon.
Eastward the outlook is more cheery: down below are displayed the
varied hues of the brand-new, spotlessly clean, little town, with its
murmuring, health-giving springs and its babbling, many-tongued throng.
Yonder, further away, the mountains tower up in an amphitheatre, ever
bluer and mistier; and, at the edge of the horizon, stretches the
silver chain of snow-clad summits, beginning with Kazbek and ending with
two-peaked Elbruz. . . Blithe is life in such a land! A feeling akin to
rapture is diffused through all my veins. The air is pure and fresh,
like the kiss of a child; the sun is bright, the sky is blue--what more
could one possibly wish for? What need, in such a place as this, of
passions, desires, regrets?

However, it is time to be stirring. I will go to the Elizaveta spring--I
am told that the whole society of the watering-place assembles there in
the morning.

*****

Descending into the middle of the town, I walked along the boulevard,
on which I met a few melancholy groups slowly ascending the mountain.
These, for the most part, were the families of landed-gentry from the
steppes--as could be guessed at once from the threadbare, old-fashioned
frock-coats of the husbands and the exquisite attire of the wives
and daughters. Evidently they already had all the young men of the
watering-place at their fingers’ ends, because they looked at me with
a tender curiosity. The Petersburg cut of my coat misled them; but
they soon recognised the military epaulettes, and turned away with
indignation.

The wives of the local authorities--the hostesses, so to speak, of the
waters--were more graciously inclined. They carry lorgnettes, and they
pay less attention to a uniform--they have grown accustomed in the
Caucasus to meeting a fervid heart beneath a numbered button and a
cultured intellect beneath a white forage-cap. These ladies are very
charming, and long continue to be charming. Each year their adorers
are exchanged for new ones, and in that very fact, it may be, lies the
secret of their unwearying amiability.

Ascending by the narrow path to the Elizaveta spring, I overtook a crowd
of officials and military men, who, as I subsequently learned, compose a
class apart amongst those who place their hopes in the medicinal waters.
They drink--but not water--take but few walks, indulge in only mild
flirtations, gamble, and complain of boredom.

They are dandies. In letting their wicker-sheathed tumblers down into
the well of sulphurous water they assume academical poses. The officials
wear bright blue cravats; the military men have ruffs sticking out above
their collars. They affect a profound contempt for provincial ladies,
and sigh for the aristocratic drawing-rooms of the capitals--to which
they are not admitted.

Here is the well at last! . . . Upon the small square adjoining it a little
house with a red roof over the bath is erected, and somewhat further on
there is a gallery in which the people walk when it rains. Some wounded
officers were sitting--pale and melancholy--on a bench, with their
crutches drawn up. A few ladies, their tumbler of water finished, were
walking with rapid steps to and fro about the square. There were two or
three pretty faces amongst them. Beneath the avenues of the vines with
which the slope of Mashuk is covered, occasional glimpses could be
caught of the gay-coloured hat of a lover of solitude for two--for
beside that hat I always noticed either a military forage-cap or the
ugly round hat of a civilian. Upon the steep cliff, where the pavilion
called “The Aeolian Harp” is erected, figured the lovers of scenery,
directing their telescopes upon Elbruz. Amongst them were a couple of
tutors, with their pupils who had come to be cured of scrofula.

Out of breath, I came to a standstill at the edge of the mountain, and,
leaning against the corner of a little house, I began to examine the
picturesque surroundings, when suddenly I heard behind me a familiar
voice.

“Pechorin! Have you been here long? ”

I turned round. Grushnitski! We embraced. I had made his acquaintance
in the active service detachment. He had been wounded in the foot by a
bullet and had come to the waters a week or so before me.

Grushnitski is a cadet; he has only been a year in the service. From
a kind of foppery peculiar to himself, he wears the thick cloak of a
common soldier. He has also the soldier’s cross of St. George. He is
well built, swarthy and black-haired. To look at him, you might say he
was a man of twenty-five, although he is scarcely twenty-one. He tosses
his head when he speaks, and keeps continually twirling his moustache
with his left hand, his right hand being occupied with the crutch on
which he leans. He speaks rapidly and affectedly; he is one of those
people who have a high-sounding phrase ready for every occasion in
life, who remain untouched by simple beauty, and who drape themselves
majestically in extraordinary sentiments, exalted passions and
exceptional sufferings. To produce an effect is their delight; they have
an almost insensate fondness for romantic provincial ladies.
When
old age approaches they become either peaceful landed-gentry or
drunkards--sometimes both. Frequently they have many good qualities,
but they have not a grain of poetry in their composition. Grushnitski’s
passion was declamation. He would deluge you with words so soon as the
conversation went beyond the sphere of ordinary ideas. I have never been
able to dispute with him. He neither answers your questions nor listens
to you. So soon as you stop, he begins a lengthy tirade, which has
the appearance of being in some sort connected with what you have been
saying, but which is, in fact, only a continuation of his own harangue.

He is witty enough; his epigrams are frequently amusing, but never
malicious, nor to the point. He slays nobody with a single word; he has
no knowledge of men and of their foibles, because all his life he has
been interested in nobody but himself. His aim is to make himself the
hero of a novel. He has so often endeavoured to convince others that he
is a being created not for this world and doomed to certain mysterious
sufferings, that he has almost convinced himself that such he is in
reality. Hence the pride with which he wears his thick soldier’s cloak.
I have seen through him, and he dislikes me for that reason, although
to outward appearance we are on the friendliest of terms. Grushnitski
is looked upon as a man of distinguished courage. I have seen him in
action. He waves his sabre, shouts, and hurls himself forward with his
eyes shut. That is not what I should call Russian courage! . . .

I reciprocate Grushnitski’s dislike. I feel that some time or other we
shall come into collision upon a narrow road, and that one of us will
fare badly.

His arrival in the Caucasus is also the result of his romantic
fanaticism. I am convinced that on the eve of his departure from his
paternal village he said with an air of gloom to some pretty neighbour
that he was going away, not so much for the simple purpose of serving
in the army as of seeking death, because. . . and hereupon, I am sure,
he covered his eyes with his hand and continued thus, “No, you--or
thou--must not know! Your pure soul would shudder! And what would be the
good? What am I to you? Could you understand me? ”. . . and so on.

He has himself told me that the motive which induced him to enter the
K----regiment must remain an everlasting secret between him and Heaven.

However, in moments when he casts aside the tragic mantle, Grushnitski
is charming and entertaining enough. I am always interested to see him
with women--it is then that he puts forth his finest efforts, I think!

We met like a couple of old friends. I began to question him about
the personages of note and as to the sort of life which was led at the
waters.

“It is a rather prosaic life,” he said, with a sigh. “Those who drink
the waters in the morning are inert--like all invalids, and those who
drink the wines in the evening are unendurable--like all healthy people!
There are ladies who entertain, but there is no great amusement to be
obtained from them. They play whist, they dress badly and speak French
dreadfully! The only Moscow people here this year are Princess Ligovski
and her daughter--but I am not acquainted with them. My soldier’s cloak
is like a seal of renunciation. The sympathy which it arouses is as
painful as charity. ”

At that moment two ladies walked past us in the direction of the well;
one elderly, the other youthful and slender. I could not obtain a good
view of their faces on account of their hats, but they were dressed in
accordance with the strict rules of the best taste--nothing superfluous.
The second lady was wearing a high-necked dress of pearl-grey, and a
light silk kerchief was wound round her supple neck. Puce-coloured boots
clasped her slim little ankle so charmingly, that even those uninitiated
into the mysteries of beauty would infallibly have sighed, if only from
wonder. There was something maidenly in her easy, but aristocratic gait,
something eluding definition yet intelligible to the glance. As she
walked past us an indefinable perfume, like that which sometimes
breathes from the note of a charming woman, was wafted from her.

“Look! ” said Grushnitski, “there is Princess Ligovski with her daughter
Mary, as she calls her after the English manner. They have been here
only three days. ”

“You already know her name, though? ”

“Yes, I heard it by chance,” he answered, with a blush. “I confess I do
not desire to make their acquaintance. These haughty aristocrats look
upon us army men just as they would upon savages. What care they if
there is an intellect beneath a numbered forage-cap, and a heart beneath
a thick cloak? ”

“Poor cloak! ” I said, with a laugh. “But who is the gentleman who is
just going up to them and handing them a tumbler so officiously? ”

“Oh, that is Raevich, the Moscow dandy. He is a gambler; you can see
as much at once from that immense gold chain coiling across his
skyblue waistcoat. And what a thick cane he has! Just like Robinson
Crusoe’s--and so is his beard too, and his hair is done like a
peasant’s. ”

“You are embittered against the whole human race? ”

“And I have cause to be”. . .

“Oh, really? ”

At that moment the ladies left the well and came up to where we were.
Grushnitski succeeded in assuming a dramatic pose with the aid of his
crutch, and in a loud tone of voice answered me in French:

“Mon cher, je hais les hommes pour ne pas les mepriser, car autrement la
vie serait une farce trop degoutante. ”

The pretty Princess Mary turned round and favoured the orator with a
long and curious glance. Her expression was quite indefinite, but it was
not contemptuous, a fact on which I inwardly congratulated Grushnitski
from my heart.

“She is an extremely pretty girl,” I said. “She has such velvet
eyes--yes, velvet is the word. I should advise you to appropriate the
expression when speaking of her eyes. The lower and upper lashes are
so long that the sunbeams are not reflected in her pupils. I love those
eyes without a glitter, they are so soft that they appear to caress you.
However, her eyes seem to be her only good feature. . . Tell me, are her
teeth white? That is most important! It is a pity that she did not smile
at that high-sounding phrase of yours. ”

“You are speaking of a pretty woman just as you might of an English
horse,” said Grushnitski indignantly.

“Mon cher,” I answered, trying to mimic his tone, “je meprise les
femmes, pour ne pas les aimer, car autrement la vie serait un melodrame
trop ridicule. ”

I turned and left him. For half an hour or so I walked about the avenues
of the vines, the limestone cliffs and the bushes hanging between them.
The day grew hot, and I hurried homewards. Passing the sulphur spring,
I stopped at the covered gallery in order to regain my breath under its
shade, and by so doing I was afforded the opportunity of witnessing a
rather interesting scene. This is the position in which the dramatis
personae were disposed: Princess Ligovski and the Moscow dandy were
sitting on a bench in the covered gallery--apparently engaged in serious
conversation. Princess Mary, who had doubtless by this time finished her
last tumbler, was walking pensively to and fro by the well. Grushnitski
was standing by the well itself; there was nobody else on the square.

I went up closer and concealed myself behind a corner of the gallery.
At that moment Grushnitski let his tumbler fall on the sand and made
strenuous efforts to stoop in order to pick it up; but his injured foot
prevented him. Poor fellow! How he tried all kinds of artifices, as he
leaned on his crutch, and all in vain! His expressive countenance was,
in fact, a picture of suffering.

Princess Mary saw the whole scene better than I.

Lighter than a bird she sprang towards him, stooped, picked up the
tumbler, and handed it to him with a gesture full of ineffable charm.
Then she blushed furiously, glanced round at the gallery, and, having
assured herself that her mother apparently had not seen anything,
immediately regained her composure. By the time Grushnitski had opened
his mouth to thank her she was a long way off. A moment after, she came
out of the gallery with her mother and the dandy, but, in passing by
Grushnitski, she assumed a most decorous and serious air. She did not
even turn round, she did not even observe the passionate gaze which he
kept fixed upon her for a long time until she had descended the mountain
and was hidden behind the lime trees of the boulevard. . . Presently I
caught glimpses of her hat as she walked along the street. She hurried
through the gate of one of the best houses in Pyatigorsk; her mother
walked behind her and bowed adieu to Raevich at the gate.

It was only then that the poor, passionate cadet noticed my presence.

“Did you see? ” he said, pressing my hand vigorously. “She is an angel,
simply an angel! ”

“Why? ” I inquired, with an air of the purest simplicity.

“Did you not see, then? ”

“No. I saw her picking up your tumbler. If there had been an attendant
there he would have done the same thing--and quicker too, in the hope
of receiving a tip. It is quite easy, however, to understand that she
pitied you; you made such a terrible grimace when you walked on the
wounded foot. ”

“And can it be that seeing her, as you did, at that moment when her soul
was shining in her eyes, you were not in the least affected? ”

“No. ”

I was lying, but I wanted to exasperate him. I have an innate passion
for contradiction--my whole life has been nothing but a series of
melancholy and vain contradictions of heart or reason. The presence of
an enthusiast chills me with a twelfth-night cold, and I believe
that constant association with a person of a flaccid and phlegmatic
temperament would have turned me into an impassioned visionary. I
confess, too, that an unpleasant but familiar sensation was coursing
lightly through my heart at that moment. It was--envy. I say “envy”
boldly, because I am accustomed to acknowledge everything to myself.
It would be hard to find a young man who, if his idle fancy had been
attracted by a pretty woman and he had suddenly found her openly
singling out before his eyes another man equally unknown to her--it
would be hard, I say, to find such a young man (living, of course, in
the great world and accustomed to indulge his self-love) who would not
have been unpleasantly taken aback in such a case.

In silence Grushnitski and I descended the mountain and walked along
the boulevard, past the windows of the house where our beauty had hidden
herself. She was sitting by the window. Grushnitski, plucking me by the
arm, cast upon her one of those gloomily tender glances which have so
little effect upon women. I directed my lorgnette at her, and observed
that she smiled at his glance and that my insolent lorgnette made
her downright angry. And how, indeed, should a Caucasian military man
presume to direct his eyeglass at a princess from Moscow? . . .




CHAPTER II. 13th May.

THIS morning the doctor came to see me. His name is Werner, but he is
a Russian. What is there surprising in that? I have known a man named
Ivanov, who was a German.

Werner is a remarkable man, and that for many reasons. Like almost all
medical men he is a sceptic and a materialist, but, at the same time, he
is a genuine poet--a poet always in deeds and often in words, although
he has never written two verses in his life. He has mastered all the
living chords of the human heart, just as one learns the veins of a
corpse, but he has never known how to avail himself of his knowledge. In
like manner, it sometimes happens that an excellent anatomist does not
know how to cure a fever. Werner usually made fun of his patients in
private; but once I saw him weeping over a dying soldier. . . He was poor,
and dreamed of millions, but he would not take a single step out of his
way for the sake of money. He once told me that he would rather do a
favour to an enemy than to a friend, because, in the latter case,
it would mean selling his beneficence, whilst hatred only increases
proportionately to the magnanimity of the adversary. He had a malicious
tongue; and more than one good, simple soul has acquired the reputation
of a vulgar fool through being labelled with one of his epigrams. His
rivals, envious medical men of the watering-place, spread the report
that he was in the habit of drawing caricatures of his patients. The
patients were incensed, and almost all of them discarded him. His
friends, that is to say all the genuinely well-bred people who were
serving in the Caucasus, vainly endeavoured to restore his fallen
credit.

His outward appearance was of the type which, at the first glance,
creates an unpleasant impression, but which you get to like in course of
time, when the eye learns to read in the irregular features the stamp of
a tried and lofty soul. Instances have been known of women falling madly
in love with men of that sort, and having no desire to exchange their
ugliness for the beauty of the freshest and rosiest of Endymions.
We must give women their due: they possess an instinct for spiritual
beauty, for which reason, possibly, men such as Werner love women so
passionately.

Werner was small and lean and as weak as a baby. One of his legs was
shorter than the other, as was the case with Byron. In comparison with
his body, his head seemed enormous. His hair was cropped close, and
the unevennesses of his cranium, thus laid bare, would have struck a
phrenologist by reason of the strange intertexture of contradictory
propensities. His little, ever restless, black eyes seemed as if they
were endeavouring to fathom your thoughts. Taste and neatness were to be
observed in his dress. His small, lean, sinewy hands flaunted themselves
in bright-yellow gloves. His frock-coat, cravat and waistcoat were
invariably of black. The young men dubbed him Mephistopheles; he
pretended to be angry at the nickname, but in reality it flattered his
vanity. Werner and I soon understood each other and became friends,
because I, for my part, am illadapted for friendship. Of two friends,
one is always the slave of the other, although frequently neither
acknowledges the fact to himself. Now, the slave I could not be; and to
be the master would be a wearisome trouble, because, at the same time,
deception would be required. Besides, I have servants and money!

Our friendship originated in the following circumstances. I met Werner
at S----, in the midst of a numerous and noisy circle of young
people. Towards the end of the evening the conversation took a
philosophico-metaphysical turn. We discussed the subject of convictions,
and each of us had some different conviction to declare.

“So far as I am concerned,” said the doctor, “I am convinced of one
thing only”. . .

“And that is--? ” I asked, desirous of learning the opinion of a man who
had been silent till then.

“Of the fact,” he answered, “that sooner or later, one fine morning, I
shall die. ”

“I am better off than you,” I said. “In addition to that, I have a
further conviction, namely, that, one very nasty evening, I had the
misfortune to be born. ”

All the others considered that we were talking nonsense, but indeed not
one of them said anything more sensible. From that moment we singled
each other out amongst the crowd. We used frequently to meet and discuss
abstract subjects in a very serious manner, until each observed that the
other was throwing dust in his eyes. Then, looking significantly at each
other--as, according to Cicero, the Roman augurs used to do--we
would burst out laughing heartily and, having had our laugh, we would
separate, well content with our evening.

I was lying on a couch, my eyes fixed upon the ceiling and my hands
clasped behind my head, when Werner entered my room. He sat down in an
easy chair, placed his cane in a corner, yawned, and announced that it
was getting hot out of doors. I replied that the flies were bothering
me--and we both fell silent.

“Observe, my dear doctor,” I said, “that, but for fools, the world would
be a very dull place. Look! Here are you and I, both sensible men!
We know beforehand that it is possible to dispute ad infinitum about
everything--and so we do not dispute. Each of us knows almost all the
other’s secret thoughts: to us a single word is a whole history; we see
the grain of every one of our feelings through a threefold husk. What
is sad, we laugh at; what is laughable, we grieve at; but, to tell the
truth, we are fairly indifferent, generally speaking, to everything
except ourselves. Consequently, there can be no interchange of feelings
and thoughts between us; each of us knows all he cares to know about
the other, and that knowledge is all he wants.