He thinks that he will be met with wide-open arms, that they won’t know how to welcome him warmly enough, what chair will be comfortable enough for him, how to entertain him hospitably enough; they will somehow succeed in worming out of him what his favourite dishes are. He imagines how embarrassed he will feel at the attentions lavished upon him, and how finally he will cast aside all conventional constraints and rush to embrace his host and hostess and start calling them by their first names as if they had known each other for twenty years – and they would all end up drinking liqueurs, and maybe even burst into song…

Some hope! They hardly spare him a glance: they frown, apologize for being so busy. If they need to see him about something, it has to be at a time when they are not having dinner or supper, and they have never heard of such a thing as an aperitif, or a little vodka with some appetizers. His host avoids any attempt to embrace him, and gives his guest strange looks. In the room next door, cutlery and glassware can be heard tinkling, and you would think they might invite him, but no: they do their best to hint that he should be leaving. Everything is under lock and key, and doorbells everywhere. All that seems so inhospitable! And what cold, unfriendly faces! But where I come from, you enter boldly, and if they have already eaten, they will start all over again just for the sake of the guest; the samovar stays on the table from morning until night, and even the shops don’t have doorbells. Everyone kisses and embraces everyone within range. Neighbours there are real neighbours, neighbours heart and soul, and family members are true kith and kin and would die for one another… it makes your heart sink to think of it.

When Alexander reached Admiralty Square, he was dumbfounded and stood stock-still for an hour in front of the Bronze Horseman, but not with bitterness in his heart like poor Yevgeny,* but in a state of exaltation. He looked at the Neva and the surrounding buildings, and his eyes sparkled. He was suddenly ashamed of his enthusiasm for those wobbly bridges, those front gardens and those dilapidated fences. He began to feel cheerful and light-hearted, and he began to view the hustle and bustle and the crowded streets in a different light, and glimpsed a glimmer of hope, hope which had been suppressed by his previous dispiriting impressions, that a new life had opened up its arms to him and was beckoning him towards the unknown. His heart began to beat faster. He saw a future of noble endeavour, lofty aspirations, and stepped out boldly along the Nevsky Prospekt, seeing himself now as a citizen of this new world. His head full of these dreams, he returned home.

At eleven o’clock that evening his uncle sent to invite him to take tea with him.

“I’m just back from the theatre,” his uncle greeted him, lying on his divan.

“What a pity you didn’t tell me before, Uncle, I would have gone with you.”

“I was in the stalls; where would you have sat – on my lap?” said Pyotr Ivanych. “Why don’t you go tomorrow by yourself?”

“It’s no fun being alone in a crowd – there’s no one to share your impressions with…”

“You shouldn’t feel like that! In time, you’ll have to learn to cope, to feel and to think on your own – in short, to live on your own. What’s more, you have to be appropriately dressed to go to the theatre.”

Alexander inspected his clothes, and found his uncle’s remark surprising.

“What’s inappropriate about the clothes I’m wearing?” he thought. “A dark-blue frock coat and trousers to match…”

“I have a lot of clothes, Uncle,” he said, “made by Königstein; he’s our governor’s tailor.”

“Forget that: what you have is just not appropriate; in a day or two I’ll take you to my own tailor. But that’s not important. There’s something more important we have to discuss. Tell me, why did you come here?”

“Well, I came… to live.”

“To live? If you mean by that to eat, drink and sleep, it was hardly worth the trouble to come all that way, because you won’t be able to eat or sleep the way you could at home; but if you mean something else, then tell me…”

“To make the most of life is what I meant,” Alexander added, blushing all over. “I was fed up with life in the country – so monotonous…”

“Ah, so that’s it! So you’ll be renting a mansion on the Nevsky Prospekt, running a carriage, cultivating a wide circle of acquaintances, and will be entertaining ‘at home’ on certain days?”

“Well, that would be pretty expensive,” Alexander responded naively.

“Your mother writes that she gave you a thousand roubles – that’s not much,” said Pyotr Ivanych. “An acquaintance of mine came here recently; he too got tired of living in the country, and wanted to get more out of life. He brought 50,000 roubles with him, and also has 50,000 more coming in every year. Now, he really will be enjoying life in St Petersburg – unlike you. That’s not what you came for.”

“To listen to you, Uncle, it seems that I myself don’t know why I came here.”

“That’s close – and better expressed – and there’s some truth in what you say, but still not correct. When you were planning to come here, did you really never ask yourself, ‘Why am I going?’ That wouldn’t have been too much to ask.”

“The answer was already there, before I needed to ask the question!” Alexander responded proudly.

“So why not tell me the reason, then?”

“It was some kind of irresistible urge, a thirst for some noble endeavour; I was bursting to find out what that might be, and to make a start on it…”

Pyotr Ivanych half rose from the divan, took out a cigar and pricked up his ears.

“Yes, make a start on fulfilling all those hopes and dreams teeming inside me…”

“You don’t happen to write poetry, do you?” Pyotr Ivanych suddenly asked him.

“And prose too, Uncle. Shall I bring some to show you?”

“No no, some other time; I was just asking.”

“But what is it?”

“It’s the way you speak…”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, maybe there’s nothing actually wrong with it: it’s just strange.”

“But that’s just the way our aesthetics professor used to speak, and he was considered the most eloquent of all the professors.” Alexander was clearly put out.

“What was he talking about when he spoke like that?”

“About his subject.”

“Ah!”

“So, Uncle, how should I be speaking”?

“A little more simply, like everyone else, and not like a professor of aesthetics. Of course, you won’t get the hang of it right away, but you’ll see for yourself in time. As far as I recall my university lectures and am able to construe your words, I believe what you’re trying to say is that you’ve come here in order to make a career and a fortune, is that correct?”

“Yes, Uncle, a career…”

“And a fortune,” Pyotr Ivanych added.