Through Russia [41]
the human race is a slave to its love of sin, or, in other words, to love of the Serpent. Yes, woman constitutes the prime impediment to everything in life, as history has many times affirmed. And first and foremost is she the source of restlessness. 'Charged with poison, the Serpent shall plunge in thee her fangs.' Which Serpent is, of course, our desire of the flesh, the Serpent at whose instigation the Greeks razed towns to the ground, and ravaged Troy and Carthagena and Egypt, and the Serpent which caused an amorous passion for the sister of Alexander Pavlovitch [The Emperor Alexander I] to bring about Napoleon's invasion of Russia. On the other hand, both the Mohammedan nations and the Jews have from earliest times grasped the matter aright, and kept their women shut up in their back premises; whereas WE permit the foulest of profligacy to exist, and walk hand in hand with our women, and allow them to graduate as female doctors and to pull teeth, and all the rest of it. The truth is that they ought not to be allowed to advance beyond midwife, since it is woman's business either to serve as a breeding animal or opprobriously to be called neiskusobrachnaia neviesta [Maid who hast never tasted of marriage.] Yes, woman's business should end there."
Near the stove there ticks and clicks on the grimy wall that is papered with "rules and regulations " and sheets of yellow manuscript the pendulum of a small clock, with, hanging to one of its weights, a hammer and a horseshoe, and, to the other, a copper pestle. Also, in a corner of the room a number of ikons make a glittering show with their silver applique and the gilded halos which surmount their figures' black visages, while a stove with a ponderous grate glowers out of the window at the greenery in Zhitnaia Street and beyond the ravine (beyond the ravine everything looks bright and beautiful), and the dusty, dimly lighted storeroom across the passage emits a perennial odour of dried mushroom, tobacco leaves, and hemp oil.
Vologonov stirs his strong, stewed tea with a battered old teaspoon, and says with a sigh as he sips a little:
"All my life I have been engaged in gaining experience so that now I know most things, and ought to be listened to with attention. Usually folk do so listen to me, but though here and there one may find a living soul, of the rest it may be said: 'In the House of David shall terrible things come to pass, and fire shall consume the spirit of lechery.'"
The words resemble bricks in that they seem, if possible, to increase the height of the walls of strange and extraneous events, and even stranger dramas, which loom for ever around, me.
"For example," continues the old man, "why is Mitri Ermolaev Polukonov, our ex-mayor, lying dead before his time? Because he conceived a number of arrogant projects. For example, he sent his eldest son to study at Kazan-- with the result that during the son's second year at the University he, the son, brought home with him a curly-headed Jewess, and said to his father: 'Without this woman I cannot live--in her are bound up my whole soul and strength.' Yes, a pass indeed! And from that day forth nothing but misfortune befell in that Yashka took to drink, the Jewess gave way to repining, and Mitri had to go perambulating the town with piteous invitations to 'come and see, my brethren, to what depths I have sunk!' And though, eventually, the Jewess died of a bloody flux, of a miscarriage, the past was beyond mending, and, while the son went to the bad, and took to drink for good and all, the father 'fell a victim by night to untimely death.' Yes, the lives of two folk were thus undone by 'the thorn-bearing company of Judaea.' Like ourselves, the Hebrew has a destiny of his own. And destiny cannot be driven out with a stick. Of each of us the destiny is unhasting. It moves slowly and quietly, and can never be avoided. 'Wait,' it says. ' Seek not to press onward.'"
As he discourses, Vologonov's eyes ceaselessly change colour--now turning to a dull grey, and wearing a tired expression, and now becoming
Near the stove there ticks and clicks on the grimy wall that is papered with "rules and regulations " and sheets of yellow manuscript the pendulum of a small clock, with, hanging to one of its weights, a hammer and a horseshoe, and, to the other, a copper pestle. Also, in a corner of the room a number of ikons make a glittering show with their silver applique and the gilded halos which surmount their figures' black visages, while a stove with a ponderous grate glowers out of the window at the greenery in Zhitnaia Street and beyond the ravine (beyond the ravine everything looks bright and beautiful), and the dusty, dimly lighted storeroom across the passage emits a perennial odour of dried mushroom, tobacco leaves, and hemp oil.
Vologonov stirs his strong, stewed tea with a battered old teaspoon, and says with a sigh as he sips a little:
"All my life I have been engaged in gaining experience so that now I know most things, and ought to be listened to with attention. Usually folk do so listen to me, but though here and there one may find a living soul, of the rest it may be said: 'In the House of David shall terrible things come to pass, and fire shall consume the spirit of lechery.'"
The words resemble bricks in that they seem, if possible, to increase the height of the walls of strange and extraneous events, and even stranger dramas, which loom for ever around, me.
"For example," continues the old man, "why is Mitri Ermolaev Polukonov, our ex-mayor, lying dead before his time? Because he conceived a number of arrogant projects. For example, he sent his eldest son to study at Kazan-- with the result that during the son's second year at the University he, the son, brought home with him a curly-headed Jewess, and said to his father: 'Without this woman I cannot live--in her are bound up my whole soul and strength.' Yes, a pass indeed! And from that day forth nothing but misfortune befell in that Yashka took to drink, the Jewess gave way to repining, and Mitri had to go perambulating the town with piteous invitations to 'come and see, my brethren, to what depths I have sunk!' And though, eventually, the Jewess died of a bloody flux, of a miscarriage, the past was beyond mending, and, while the son went to the bad, and took to drink for good and all, the father 'fell a victim by night to untimely death.' Yes, the lives of two folk were thus undone by 'the thorn-bearing company of Judaea.' Like ourselves, the Hebrew has a destiny of his own. And destiny cannot be driven out with a stick. Of each of us the destiny is unhasting. It moves slowly and quietly, and can never be avoided. 'Wait,' it says. ' Seek not to press onward.'"
As he discourses, Vologonov's eyes ceaselessly change colour--now turning to a dull grey, and wearing a tired expression, and now becoming