What’s the matter? There can’t be any secrets in it, otherwise it wouldn’t just be lying around…”

“So now what do you think of me?”

“I think that you write quite well – correctly and fluently…”

“Then you didn’t read what I wrote?” Alexander asked eagerly.

“No, I think I read it all,” said Pyotr Ivanych, looking at both pages. “First you describe St Petersburg and your impressions, and then you write about me.”

“My God!” Alexander exclaimed, and covered his face with his hands.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Well, you don’t seem at all bothered! Aren’t you angry? Don’t you hate me?”

“Not at all! Why should I lose my temper?”

“Repeat that, and set my mind at rest.”

“The answer is no, no, no!”

“I still can’t believe you – prove it to me, Uncle…”

“How?”

“Embrace me!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a meaningless gesture: it makes no sense, no – or, to use the words of your professor, my intelligence won’t let me; now if you were a woman – that would be a different matter: then it wouldn’t have to make any sense – it would be prompted by quite a different feeling.”

“You mean your feelings would get the better of you, your emotions would have to find an outlet…”

“My feelings don’t get the better of me – and if they did, I would control myself – and I advise you to do the same.”

“But why?”

“Because afterwards, when you’ve taken a closer look at the person you’ve embraced, you won’t have to blush at the thought.”

“Hasn’t it ever happened, Uncle, that you have rebuffed someone and then regretted it?”

“Yes, it happens, and that’s why I never rebuff anyone!”

“Then you won’t rebuff me either for my gesture, and call me a monster?”

“Where you come from, then, anyone who writes rubbish is a monster, so there must be thousands of them around.”

“But to read such bitter truths about yourself – and written by your own nephew!”

“Oh, you think you were writing the truth?…”

“Oh Uncle, of course I was mistaken… I’ll correct it… I’m sorry…”

“You want me to dictate the truth?”

“Please do!”

“Well, sit down and write!”

“Alexander took out a sheet of paper and picked up a pen, and Pyotr Ivanych, looking at the letter he had read, began to dictate:

“My dear friend – have you got that down?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t describe to you my impressions of St Petersburg.”

“I won’t,” repeated Alexander as he wrote the words down.

“St Petersburg has already been described long ago, and what hasn’t been described you should come and see for yourself; my impressions are of no use to you, so why waste the time and the paper? I would do better to describe my uncle, because that affects me personally.”

“My uncle,” Alexander repeated.

“Now you write that I’m nice and intelligent – it may or may not be true, so let’s split the difference and write:

“My uncle is not stupid and not ill natured, and wishes me well…”

“Dear Uncle, I can appreciate that, and I feel…” said Alexander, reaching out to kiss him.

“…although he doesn’t hover over me…” Pyotr Ivanych continued dictating. Alexander, failing in his attempt, sat down quickly in his seat. “…but wishes me well because he has no reason or motive for wishing me ill, and because my mother asked this of him, and in the past she had been good to him. He says he does not love me – and quite rightly, because it’s impossible to come to love someone in two weeks, and I don’t yet love him, although I actually assure him of the contrary.”

“How can you say that?” Alexander exclaimed.

“Keep on writing… But we are beginning to get used to each other. He even claims that one can do without love altogether. He doesn’t sit down and hug me from morning to night, because there’s absolutely no need for that, and in any case he doesn’t have the time… But dead against any demonstration of true feelings… You can leave that in, it’s good. Have you got it?

“Now let’s see what else you have put… No room for poetry in his soul, a demon… Go on writing!”

While Alexander was writing, Pyotr Ivanych picked up a piece of paper from the table, twisted it into a taper, set light to it and lit a cigar. He threw down the paper and stamped it out.

He went on dictating: “My uncle is neither a demon nor an angel, but just like anyone else, although not exactly like you and me. His thoughts and his feelings are earth-bound, and he thinks that if we live on the earth, then we shouldn’t leave it to fly up to the heavens – which so far no one has asked us to do – and should spend our time dealing with the human business which we have been assigned to. Accordingly, he takes all earthly matters, and indeed life itself, for what they are, and not for what we would like them to be. He believes in good, and at the same time in evil, in the beautiful and in the ugly. He also believes in love and friendship, but not that they fell from heaven into the dirt, and believes that they were created along with people and for people, and therefore that is how they should be understood, and furthermore that everything should be very closely and realistically examined, and that we should not allow ourselves to be carried away in God knows what directions. He concedes the possibility of affability which, after a period of casual acquaintanceship and habituation, may turn into friendship. But he also believes that when people are apart, habit loses its force, and they forget each other, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. So he assures me that I will forget you, and you will forget me. To me – and no doubt to you – that seems perverse, but his advice is to get used to the idea, so that neither of us will make fools of ourselves. With slight qualifications, he feels the same way about love: he doesn’t believe in enduring and eternal love any more than he does in fairies, and he advises us to follow his example in this. As a matter of fact, he advises me to think about all that as little as possible, and I offer you the same advice. It is something which he says comes of its own accord – it doesn’t have to be sought; he says that there’s more to life than just that, and that like everything else in life it comes when the time is right, and spending your life dreaming about that is stupid. Those who seek it, and can’t stand a moment without it, are fixated on their hearts, and what is worse, doing so at the expense of their heads. Uncle likes to spend his time on business, and he advises you and me to do the same. We are members of society, he says, and society needs us; while he is working he’s not forgetting himself: work brings in money, and money brings comforts, which he is very fond of. Also, it’s possible that he has intentions, as a consequence of which it is likely that it won’t be me who will be his heir. Uncle is not always thinking of his work and the factory: he knows some literature by heart – and not only Pushkin…”

“You, Uncle?” Alexander said in surprise.

“Yes, as you will discover some day. Go on writing!”

“He reads in two languages everything that is noteworthy in all areas of human knowledge; he likes art and has a fine collection of paintings of the Flemish school – that’s his taste – and goes frequently to the theatre, but doesn’t make a fuss about it or make a big show of it; he doesn’t go into ecstasies over it – he thinks that’s childish, and that one should restrain oneself. He doesn’t impose his impressions on others, because he thinks no one needs them. He doesn’t let his tongue run away with him, and advises us to follow his example. Goodbye, write to me a little less often – it’s not worth your time. Your friend, etc.