He does have some strange quirks… he’s given to kissing and talks like a seminarian… but he’ll get over that; and the good thing is that he hasn’t saddled himself on me.”

“Does he have a fortune?” his partner asked.

“No, only about a hundred serfs.”

“No matter! If he has some ability, he should work out here… after all, you yourself didn’t start with much, and look where you are now, thank God…”

“No! No way! He will get nowhere. With his foolish head always in the clouds, he’s just not cut out for it, oh God no! He’ll never get used to the way things are done here; how is he going to make a career? He should never have come… well, anyway, that’s his business.”

Alexander felt it his duty to love his uncle, but just could not get used to his character and cast of mind.

“My uncle seems to be a decent fellow,” he wrote one morning to Pospelov,

he’s very intelligent, but extremely matter-of-fact; all he ever thinks about is business and accounts… He seems totally earth-bound, and simply doesn’t seem capable of raising his sights from those banal earthly concerns to the pure contemplation of man’s spiritual nature. For him the heavens are securely anchored to the earth, and it looks as if he and I will never become kindred spirits. Coming here, I thought that as my uncle he would surely find me a place in his heart and warm me up from the coldness of these crowds of strangers in his affectionate embrace, and offer me his friendship – and, as you know, friendship is ‘the Second Providence’! But he too is nothing but a manifestation of those same crowds. I thought I would share my time with him – never stray from his side for a minute, but what did I find? Cold advice, which he describes as practical; but I would much prefer that it was impractical, but full of warm, heartfelt concern. It’s not that he’s proud, exactly, but dead against any demonstration of true feelings; we don’t have dinner or supper together, and never go anywhere together. When he comes home, he never says where he’s been or what he’s been doing; nor does he ever say where he is going or why, who his friends are, what his likes or dislikes are or how he spends his time. He never loses his temper, is never affectionate, never upset and never cheerful. His heart is closed to any display of love, friendliness or any proclivity to beauty. Often you may be speaking like a prophet in the grip of inspiration, almost like our own great unforgettable Ivan Semyonych when, you remember, he thundered from the pulpit while we trembled in rapture at his fiery rhetoric and piercing gaze. But my uncle? He just listens with raised eyebrows, gives you a strange look and that special laugh of his which turns your blood to ice – and it’s goodbye to inspiration! I sometimes see in him Pushkin’s demon*… he doesn’t believe in love and that sort of thing; he says there’s no such thing as happiness, and no one has ever even promised it, and that all there is is life, equally divided between good and evil, between pleasure, success, good health, peace and quiet and, on the other hand, pain, failure, anxiety, sickness and the rest. He says that you must simply face this fact, and not fill your head with all these useless – yes, useless! – thoughts about why we were created, and what we should aspire to – no, that’s not our concern – and it’s because of that that we fail to see what’s in front of our noses, and don’t get on with our business… business, yes that’s all you ever hear from him! You can never tell whether he is experiencing some kind of pleasure, or whether he’s dwelling on some purely down-to-earth matter; whether he’s doing his books or at the theatre, he’s just the same; he is immune to any strong emotions, and appears to have no feeling for the finer things; why, I don’t believe he has even read Pushkin…

Pyotr Ivanych suddenly appeared in his nephew’s room and found him writing this letter.

“I came to see how you were settling in,” said his uncle, “and to talk about a practical matter.”

Alexander jumped up and quickly covered something with his hand.

“That’s right, hide your secret,” said Pyotr Ivanych, “I’ll turn away. Well, have you hidden it? But something just fell out, what is it?”

“It’s nothing, Uncle…” Alexander began, but was too embarrassed to go on and broke off.

“It looks like hair! Nothing indeed! Now that I’ve seen one thing, you might as well show me what else you’re hiding in your hand.”

Like a schoolboy caught in the act, Alexander opened his hand and revealed a ring.

“What’s that? Where did you get it?”

“A material token… of an abstraction, a relationship…”

“What? What, give it here – this token.”

“It’s a pledge…”

“No doubt; you brought it with you from the country?”

“It’s from Sofia, Uncle, a memento… a farewell present…”

“All right. And you brought it 1,500 versts all the way here?” His uncle shook his head. “You’d have done better to bring another bag of dried strawberries; you could at least have sold them to that shopkeeper, but these keepsakes…”

He looked at the hair and the ring in turn, sniffed the hair and weighed the ring in his hand. Then he picked up the piece of paper from the table and wrapped it around both keepsakes, crumpled it into a small ball and flung it out of the window just like that!

“Uncle!” Alexander screamed out in a fury, grabbing his hand. But it was too late. The crumpled ball flew past the corner of the neighbouring roof and fell into the canal, bounced off the deck of a barge carrying a load of bricks and into the water.

Alexander fell silent and gave his uncle a look of bitter reproach.

“Uncle!” he repeated.

“What?”

“What would you call what you just did?”

“Throwing out of the window into the canal a bunch of immaterial tokens and any other kind of useless rubbish cluttering up this room…”

“Rubbish, you call that ‘useless rubbish’!”

“And what did you think it was? Half of your heart? I came here to discuss practical matters with him, and what do I find him doing? Sitting and brooding over rubbish!”

“And according to you, that interferes with practical matters?”

“Very much so. Time is passing, and I still haven’t heard a word from you about your intentions: do you want to find a position, or have you chosen some other line of work? Not a word! And all because you have Sofia and her keepsakes on your mind. And if I’m not mistaken, here you are writing her a letter. Am I right?”

“Well yes… I was just beginning…”

“And have you written to your mother?”

“Not yet, I was going to tomorrow.”

“And why tomorrow? So, it’s your mother tomorrow, and this Sofia, whom you will have forgotten in a month, today…”

“Sofia? You think I could forget her?”

“Of course. If I hadn’t thrown out your keepsakes, I suppose you might just have gone on remembering her for another month. I’ve just done you a double favour. In a few years, all those keepsakes would have done would be to remind you of your foolishness, and you would blush at the thought.”

“Blush at the thought of such a pure, sacred memory! That would mean there’s no room for poetry…”

“What’s poetry got to do with such foolishness? Like that poetry, for example, in your aunt’s letter! The yellow flower, the lake, some secret or other… I can’t tell you how uncomfortable it made me feel; I was close to blushing, and I certainly should have got over blushing by now!”

“That’s awful, awful, Uncle! So you mean you’ve never been in love?”

“I could never stand keepsakes.”

“But that’s living as if you were made of wood!” Alexander was beside himself. “That’s vegetating, not living! Vegetating without inspiration, without life, without love…”

“And without hair!” his uncle added.

“Uncle, how can you so cold-bloodedly ridicule what is best in this world? That’s a crime… love is the most sacred of emotions!”

“I’m well acquainted with that sacred love of yours: at your age, all you see is a lock of hair, a dainty slipper, a garter, a touch of the hand, and this exalted love of yours runs like a shudder through your whole body – but once you give way to it, then you’re in trouble… Your love, unfortunately, lies ahead of you, and there’s no getting away from that – but finding a career will get away from you, if you don’t get down to business.”

“But isn’t love just as serious a matter?”

“No, it’s a pleasant distraction, but you shouldn’t take it too seriously, otherwise it will let you down. And that is precisely what I fear for you.”

His uncle shook his head and said, “I’ve almost found you a position; you do want one, I suppose?”

“Oh, Uncle, I’m so pleased!”

Alexander rushed to kiss his uncle on the cheek.

“You were quick to seize the opportunity!” said his uncle, wiping his cheek. “Why did I let myself be taken by surprise! Now listen; I want you to tell me what you know: what line of work do you feel equipped for?”

“I know divinity, civil, criminal, natural and customary law, diplomacy, political economics, national law, philosophy, aesthetics, archaeology…”

“Slow down! What I want to know is whether you can write decent Russian. Right now, that’s the most important thing.”

“What a question, Uncle – can I write Russian!” said Alexander, and hurried over to the chest of drawers and started to take out various papers, while his uncle picked some letter which was lying on the table and started to read it.

Alexander brought the papers to the table and saw his uncle reading the letter. The papers fell from his hands.

“What is that you’re reading, Uncle?” he said apprehensively.

“There was this letter lying on the table – to one of your friends, no doubt. I’m sorry, I just wanted to see how you wrote.”

“And you’ve read it?”

“Almost – everything except the last two lines – I’m just finishing it.