"He's a wonderful person," he declared."I know very little of him, have only met him twice, but you should see what letters he writes! Marvellous letters! I will show them to you and you can judge for yourself.He is full of enthusiasm.And what activity the man is capable of! He has rushed over the length and breadth of Russia five or six times, and written a twelve-page letter from every place!
Nejdanov looked questioningly at Ostrodumov, but the latter was sitting like a statue, not an eyebrow twitching.Mashurina was also motionless, a bitter smile playing on her lips.
Nejdanov went on to ask Markelov if he had made any socialist experiments on his own estate, but here Ostrodumov interrupted him.
"What is the good of all that?" he asked."All the same, it will have to be altered afterwards."The conversation turned to political channels again.The mysterious inner pain again began gnawing at Nejdanov's heart, but the keener the pain, the more positively and loudly he spoke.
He had drunk only one glass of beer, but it seemed to him at times that he was quite intoxicated.His head swam around and his heart beat feverishly.
When the discussion came to an end at last at about four o'clock in the morning, and they all passed by the servant asleep in the anteroom on their way to their own rooms, Nejdanov, before retiring to bed, stood for a long time motionless, gazing straight before him.He was filled with wonder at the proud, heart-rending note in all that Markelov had said.The man's vanity must have been hurt, he must have suffered, but how nobly he forgot his own personal sorrows for that which he held to be the truth."He is a limited soul," Nejdanov thought, " but is it not a thousand times better to be like that than such...such as I feel myself to be?
He immediately became indignant at his own self-depreciation.
"What made me think that? Am I not also capable of self-sacrifice? Just wait, gentlemen, and you too, Paklin.I will show you all that although I am aesthetic and write verses--"He pushed back his hair with an angry gesture, ground his teeth, undressed hurriedly, and jumped into the cold, damp bed.
"Goodnight, I am your neighbour," Mashurina's voice was heard from the other side of the door.
"Goodnight," Nejdanov responded, and remembered suddenly that during the whole evening she had not taken her eyes off him.
"What does she want? " he muttered to himself, and instantly felt ashamed."If only I could get to sleep!
But it was difficult for him to calm his overwrought nerves, and the sun was already high when at last he fell into a heavy, troubled sleep.
In the morning he got up late with a bad headache.He dressed, went up to the window of his attic, and looked out upon Markelov's farm.It was practically a mere nothing; the tiny little house was situated in a hollow by the side of a wood.Asmall barn, the stables, cellar, and a little hut with a half-bare thatched roof, stood on one side; on the other a small pond, a strip of kitchen garden, a hemp field, another hut with a roof like the first one; in the distance yet another barn, a tiny shed, and an empty thrashing floor--this was all the "wealth"that met the eye.It all seemed poor and decaying, not exactly as if it had been allowed to run wild, but as though it had never flourished, like a young tree that had not taken root well.
When Nejdanov went downstairs, Mashurina was sitting in the dining room at the samovar, evidently waiting for him.She told him that Ostrodumov had gone away on business, in connection with the cause, and would not be back for about a fortnight, and that their host had gone to look after his peasants.As it was already at the end of May, and there was no urgent work to be done, Markelov had thought of felling a small birch wood, with such means as he had at his command, and had gone down there to see after it.
Nejdanov felt a strange weariness at heart.So much had been said the night before about the impossibility of holding back any longer, about the necessity of making a beginning."But how could one begin, now, at once?" he asked himself.It was useless talking it over with Mashurina, there was no hesitation for her.
She knew that she had to go to K., and beyond that she did not look ahead.Nejdanov was at a loss to know what to say to her, and as soon as he finished his tea took his hat and went out in the direction of the birch wood.On the way he fell in with some peasants carting manure, a few of Markelov's former serfs.He entered into conversation with them, but was very little the wiser for it.They, too, seemed weary, but with a normal physical weariness, quite unlike the sensation experienced by him.They spoke of their master as a kind-hearted gentleman, but rather odd, and predicted his ruin, because be would go his own way, instead of doing as his forefathers had done before him."And he's so clever, you know, you can't understand what he says, however hard you may try.But he's a good sort." A little farther on Nejdanov came across Markelov himself.
