I
“I do not remember my father. He died when I was two years old. My mother married a second time. This second marriage brought her much sorrow, although it was a marriage for love. My stepfather was a musician. His fate is quite remarkable: he was the strangest, most marvelous person of all those I have known. He was too strongly reflected in the first impressions of my childhood, so strongly that these impressions influenced my entire life. First of all, so that my story can be understood, I will give his biography here. Everything I am about to relate I later learned from the famous violinist B., who was my stepfather’s comrade and close friend in his youth.
My stepfather’s surname was Yefimov. He was born in the village of a very wealthy landowner, the son of a poor musician who, after long wanderings, settled on the estate of this landowner and hired himself out to his orchestra. The landowner lived very splendidly and, above all, was passionately fond of music. They said of him that, although he never traveled from his village even to Moscow, he once suddenly decided to go abroad to some spas, and went for no more than a few weeks, solely to hear a certain famous violinist who, as the newspapers reported, was planning to give three concerts at the spa. He had a respectable orchestra of musicians, on which he spent almost his entire income. My stepfather joined this orchestra as a clarinetist. He was twenty-two years old when he met a strange man. In the same district lived a rich count who had ruined himself by maintaining a private theater. This count dismissed the conductor of his orchestra, an Italian by birth, for bad behavior. The conductor was indeed a bad man. When he was expelled, he became utterly degraded, started frequenting village taverns, got drunk, sometimes begged for alms, and no one in the entire province wanted to give him a position. It was with this man that my stepfather became friends. This connection was inexplicable and strange, because no one noticed that he had changed his behavior in any way by imitating his comrade, and even the landowner himself, who initially forbade him from associating with the Italian, later turned a blind eye to their friendship. Finally, the conductor died suddenly. He was found by the peasants in the morning in a ditch, near the dam. An inquest was held, and it turned out that he had died of an apoplectic stroke. His belongings were kept by my stepfather, who immediately presented evidence that he had the full right to inherit this property: the deceased had left a handwritten note, in which he made Yefimov his heir in the event of his death. The inheritance consisted of a black frock coat, carefully preserved by the deceased, who still hoped to find a position, and a violin, quite ordinary in appearance. No one disputed this inheritance. But only some time later, the first violinist of the count’s orchestra came to the landowner with a letter from the count. In this letter, the count begged and persuaded Yefimov to sell the violin left by the Italian, which the count greatly desired to acquire for his orchestra. He offered three thousand rubles and added that he had already sent for Yegor Yefimov several times to conclude the deal in person, but that Yefimov persistently refused. The count concluded by saying that the price for the violin was fair, that he was not lowering it at all, and that Yefimov’s stubbornness seemed to him an offensive suspicion that he was taking advantage of his simplicity and ignorance during the negotiation, and therefore asked that Yefimov be reasoned with.
The landowner immediately sent for my stepfather.
“Why don’t you want to give up the violin?” he asked him. “You don’t need it. They are offering you three thousand rubles, which is a fair price, and you are acting unwisely if you think you will get more. The count will not deceive you.”
Yefimov replied that he would not go to the count himself, but if he were sent, that would be the master’s will; he would not sell the violin to the count, and if they wanted to take it from him by force, that again would be the master’s will.
It was clear that such an answer touched the most sensitive chord in the landowner’s character. The fact was that he always spoke with pride that he knew how to deal with his musicians, because every single one of them was a true artist, and that, thanks to them, his orchestra was not only better than the count’s but also no worse than a metropolitan one.
“Fine!” the landowner replied. “I will inform the count that you do not want to sell the violin because you do not want to, because you have every right to sell or not sell, do you understand? But I ask you myself: why do you need the violin? Your instrument is the clarinet, even though you are a poor clarinetist. Give it to me. I will give you three thousand. (Who knew what kind of instrument it was!)”
Yefimov smiled faintly.
“No, sir, I won’t sell it to you,” he replied. “Of course, it’s your will…”
“Am I oppressing you, am I forcing you!” the landowner shouted, losing his temper, especially since the incident was taking place in the presence of the count’s musician, who might draw a very unfavorable conclusion from this scene about the fate of all the musicians in the landowner’s orchestra. “Get out of here, you ingrate! Don’t let me see you again from now on. Where would you go without me with your clarinet, which you can’t even play? With me, you are fed, clothed, you receive a salary; you live on a respectable footing, you are an artist, but you don’t want to understand this and you don’t feel it. Get out of here and don’t irritate me with your presence!”
The landowner chased away everyone he was angry with because he was afraid of himself and his own hot temper. And he would never have wanted to act too harshly towards an “artist,” as he called his musicians.
The transaction did not take place, and it seemed the matter ended there, when suddenly, a month later, the count’s violinist stirred up a terrible business: on his own responsibility, he filed an accusation against my stepfather, in which he argued that the stepfather was guilty of the Italian’s death and had murdered him with the mercenary aim of seizing the rich inheritance. He claimed that the will had been extorted by force and promised to produce witnesses to his accusation. Neither the pleas nor the admonitions of the count and the landowner, who interceded for my stepfather—nothing could shake the accuser in his intention. They pointed out to him that the medical examination of the deceased conductor’s body had been correctly performed, that the accuser was going against the obvious, perhaps out of personal malice and vexation at having failed to acquire the valuable instrument they were buying for him. The musician stood his ground, swore he was right, argued that the apoplectic stroke was due not to drunkenness but to poison, and demanded a second investigation. At first glance, his evidence seemed serious. Naturally, the case proceeded. Yefimov was arrested and sent to the city prison. A trial began that interested the entire province. It progressed very quickly and ended with the musician being convicted of making a false accusation. He was sentenced to a just punishment, but he stood by his claim to the end and insisted that he was right. Finally, he confessed that he had no evidence, that the evidence he presented was fabricated by himself, but that, while inventing all this, he acted on assumption, on conjecture, because to this day, even after another investigation had been conducted and Yefimov’s innocence formally proven, he still remains firmly convinced that the cause of the unfortunate conductor’s death was Yefimov, although perhaps he did not kill him with poison, but in some other way. However, they did not manage to carry out the sentence on him: he suddenly fell ill with brain inflammation, went mad, and died in the prison infirmary.
Throughout this whole affair, the landowner behaved in the most noble manner. He cared for my stepfather as if the latter were his own son. He came to the prison several times to console him, gave him money, and brought him the best cigars, having learned that Yefimov liked to smoke, and when the stepfather was acquitted, he threw a celebration for the entire orchestra. The landowner viewed Yefimov’s case as a matter concerning the entire orchestra, because he valued the good conduct of his musicians if not more, then at least equally with their talent. A whole year passed, when suddenly a rumor spread throughout the province that some famous violinist, a Frenchman, had arrived in the provincial city and intended to give several concerts in passing. The landowner immediately began trying to lure him to his house as a guest somehow. Things went well; the Frenchman promised to come. Everything was already ready for his arrival, almost the entire district was invited, but suddenly everything took a different turn.
One morning, it was reported that Yefimov had disappeared without a trace. Searches began, but all clues vanished. The orchestra was in an extraordinary situation: the clarinet was missing, when suddenly, about three days after Yefimov’s disappearance, the landowner received a letter from the Frenchman, in which he arrogantly refused the invitation, adding, though of course indirectly, that he would be extremely cautious in the future in his dealings with gentlemen who maintained their own orchestra of musicians, that it was aesthetically displeasing to see true talent under the management of a man who did not appreciate its value, and that, finally, the example of Yefimov, a true artist and the best violinist he had met in Russia, served as sufficient proof of the justice of his words.
Reading this letter, the landowner was deeply astonished. He was aggrieved to the core. How? Yefimov, the very Yefimov he had cared for so much, whom he had so generously helped, this Yefimov had so mercilessly, shamelessly slandered him in the eyes of a European artist, a man whose opinion he highly valued! And finally, the letter was inexplicable in another respect: it stated that Yefimov was an artist of true talent, that he was a violinist, but that they had failed to recognize his talent and forced him to practice another instrument. All this so struck the landowner that he immediately prepared to go to the city to meet the Frenchman, when suddenly he received a note from the count, in which the latter invited him immediately to his home and informed him that he knew the whole story, that the visiting virtuoso was now with him, along with Yefimov, that, being astonished by the latter’s insolence and slander, he had ordered his detention, and that, finally, the landowner’s presence was necessary also because Yefimov’s accusation concerned even the count himself; the matter was very serious, and it needed to be clarified as soon as possible.
The landowner, immediately setting off for the count’s, instantly made the acquaintance of the Frenchman and explained the whole story of my stepfather, adding that he had not suspected such enormous talent in Yefimov, that Yefimov had been, on the contrary, a very poor clarinetist under him, and that he was only hearing for the first time that the musician who had left him was a violinist. He added further that Yefimov was a free man, enjoyed complete liberty, and could have left him at any time if he had indeed been oppressed. The Frenchman was astonished. Yefimov was called in, and he was scarcely recognizable: he behaved arrogantly, answered with mockery, and insisted on the truth of what he had managed to say to the Frenchman. All this extremely irritated the count, who bluntly told my stepfather that he was a scoundrel, a slanderer, and deserved the most shameful punishment.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Your Excellency, I am already quite familiar with you and know you well,” my stepfather replied. “Thanks to you, I barely escaped criminal punishment. I know at whose instigation Alexey Nikiforych, your former musician, informed on me.”
The count was beside himself with anger upon hearing such a terrible accusation. He could barely contain himself; but a functionary who happened to be in the hall, having stopped by the count’s on business, declared that he could not let all this pass without consequences, that Yefimov’s offensive rudeness contained a malicious, unjust accusation, slander, and he humbly requested permission to arrest him right then and there, in the count’s house. The Frenchman expressed complete indignation and said that he did not understand such black ingratitude. Then my stepfather answered heatedly that punishment, trial, and even another criminal investigation were better than the life he had experienced until now, serving in the landowner’s orchestra and not having the means to leave earlier due to his extreme poverty, and with these words, he left the hall with those who arrested him. He was locked in a remote room of the house and threatened that he would be sent to the city the next day.
Around midnight, the door to the prisoner’s room opened. The landowner entered. He was in a dressing gown and slippers and held a lit lantern in his hands. It seemed he could not sleep, and tormenting worry had compelled him to leave his bed at such an hour. Yefimov was not asleep and looked at the newcomer with astonishment. The landowner set down the lantern and, deeply agitated, sat opposite him on a chair.
“Yegor,” he said to him, “why did you offend me so?”
Yefimov did not answer. The landowner repeated his question, and some deep feeling, some strange anguish, sounded in his words.
“God knows why I offended you so, sir!” my stepfather finally answered, waving his hand. “Must be the devil misled me! And I myself don’t know who is pushing me to all this! Well, it’s no life for me with you, no life… The devil himself has attached himself to me! ”
“Yegor!” the landowner began again. “Come back to me; I will forget everything, forgive everything. Listen: you will be the first of my musicians; I will give you an unparalleled salary…”
“No, sir, no, don’t say it: I won’t live with you! I tell you, the devil is clinging to me. I will set your house on fire if I stay; something comes over me, and such anguish sometimes, that I’d rather never have been born! Now I can’t answer for myself: you’d better leave me alone, sir, I tell you a second time. I’ll do something to myself to get myself sent somewhere far away, and that will be the end of it! ”
“Who?” asked the landowner.
“That devil who died like a dog, whom the world abandoned, the Italian.”
“Did he teach you to play, Yegorushka?”
“Yes! He taught me much to my ruin. I wish I had never seen him. ”
“Was he a master on the violin too, Yegorushka?”
“No, he himself knew little, but he taught well. I taught myself; he only showed me how to,”—”and it would be easier for my hand to wither than to bear this knowledge. I myself don’t know what I want now. Ask me, sir: ‘Yegorka! What do you want? I can give you everything,’—and I, sir, won’t say a word in reply, because I don’t know what I want myself. No, you’d better leave me alone, sir, I say it again. I’ll do something to myself to get myself sent far away, and that will be the end of it!”
“Yegor!” the landowner said after a moment’s silence. “I won’t leave you like this. If you don’t want to serve me, go; you are a free man, I cannot keep you; but I will not leave you now without something. Play something for me, Yegor, on your violin, play! For God’s sake, play! I am not ordering you, understand me, I am not forcing you; I beg you tearfully: play for me, Yegorushka, for God’s sake, what you played for the Frenchman! Ease your soul! You are stubborn, and I am stubborn; I must have my own way too, Yegorushka! I feel for you, feel for me too. I cannot live until you play for me, of your own free will and desire, what you played for the Frenchman.”
“Well, so be it!” said Yefimov. “I vowed, sir, never to play before you, specifically before you, but now my heart is released. I will play for you, but only for the first and last time, and never and nowhere, sir, will you hear me again, even if you offered me a thousand rubles.”
Then he took the violin and began to play his variations on Russian songs. B. said that these variations were his first and best piece on the violin and that he never played anything again so well and with such inspiration. The landowner, who was already incapable of hearing music with indifference, wept bitterly. When the playing ended, he rose from the chair, took out three hundred rubles, gave them to my stepfather, and said:
“Now go, Yegor. I will release you from here and settle everything with the count myself; but listen: do not meet me again. The road before you is wide, and if we clash on it, it will be painful for both you and me. Well, farewell!… Wait! One more piece of advice for your journey, only one: don’t drink and study, keep studying everything; don’t become conceited! I tell you this as your own father would tell you. Mind you, I repeat again: study and don’t touch a glass, and if you drink once out of sorrow (and there will be a lot of sorrow!), consider yourself lost, everything will go to the devil, and perhaps you yourself will die somewhere in a ditch, like your Italian. Well, now farewell!… Wait, kiss me!”
They kissed, and immediately after, my stepfather walked out to freedom.
No sooner was he free than he immediately started by squandering his three hundred rubles in the nearest district town, at the same time fraternizing with the very darkest, dirtiest company of some revelers, and ended up, left alone in destitution and without any help, being forced to join some wretched orchestra of a wandering provincial theater as the first and perhaps only violin. All this was not entirely consistent with his original intentions, which consisted of going to St. Petersburg as quickly as possible to study, get a good position, and fully develop himself as an artist. But life in the small orchestra did not work out. My stepfather soon quarreled with the impresario of the traveling theater and left him. Then he completely lost heart and even decided on a desperate measure that deeply stung his pride. He wrote a letter to the landowner we know, described his situation, and begged for money. The letter was written quite independently, but no reply followed. Then he wrote another, in which, in the most humiliating terms, calling the landowner his benefactor and styling him a true connoisseur of the arts, he again asked for assistance. Finally, a reply came. The landowner sent a hundred rubles and a few lines written by the hand of his valet, in which he declared that he should be spared from any further requests. Upon receiving this money, the stepfather immediately wanted to go to St. Petersburg, but after paying off his debts, the money was so little that the journey was out of the question. He remained in the provinces again, again joined some provincial orchestra, then again did not get along there, and thus, moving from one place to another, with the eternal idea of somehow reaching St. Petersburg soon, he spent six whole years in the provinces. Finally, some kind of terror descended upon him. With despair, he noticed how much his talent had suffered, constantly constrained by his disorderly, beggarly life, and one morning he abandoned his impresario, took his violin, and came to St. Petersburg, practically begging for alms. He settled somewhere in an attic, and it was there that he first met B., who had just arrived from Germany and was also planning to build a career. They quickly became friends, and B. recalls this acquaintance with deep emotion even now. Both were young, both with the same hopes, and both with the same goal. But B. was still in his early youth; he had endured little poverty and grief yet; besides, he was a German first and foremost and strove towards his goal stubbornly, systematically, with complete awareness of his abilities, and had almost calculated beforehand what would become of him—whereas his comrade was already thirty years old, whereas he was already tired, exhausted, had lost all patience, and had worn out his initial, healthy strength, forced to wander through provincial theaters and landowners’ orchestras for seven whole years for a piece of bread. He was supported only by one eternal, immovable idea—to finally escape his miserable situation, save money, and get to St. Petersburg. But this idea was dark, unclear; it was some kind of irresistible inner call which finally, over the years, lost its initial clarity in Yefimov’s own eyes, and when he arrived in St. Petersburg, he was already acting almost unconsciously, out of some eternal, old habit of eternally wishing and thinking about this journey, and almost no longer knowing what he would have to do in the capital. His enthusiasm was convulsive, bilious, impulsive, as if he himself wanted to deceive himself with this enthusiasm and assure himself through it that his initial strength, initial fervor, initial inspiration had not yet been exhausted. This incessant ecstasy struck the cold, methodical B.; he was blinded and greeted my stepfather as a future great musical genius. He could not imagine his comrade’s future fate otherwise. But soon B. opened his eyes and completely understood him. He clearly saw that all this impulsiveness, feverishness, and impatience were nothing more than unconscious despair at the memory of lost talent; that even, finally, the talent itself was perhaps not so great even at the very beginning, that there was much blindness, vain self-confidence, initial self-satisfaction, and incessant fantasy, incessant dreaming of his own genius. “But,” B. related, “I could not help but be amazed by my comrade’s strange nature. Before me, a desperate, feverish struggle between convulsively strained will and inner powerlessness was taking place in reality. The unfortunate man had satisfied himself with mere dreams of his future glory for seven whole years, so much so that he did not even notice how he had lost the very rudiments of our art, how he had lost even the most basic mechanics of the craft. And yet, the most colossal plans for the future were constantly being created in his disorderly imagination. Not only did he want to be a first-class genius, one of the foremost violinists in the world; not only did he already consider himself such a genius—he also thought of becoming a composer, without knowing anything about counterpoint. But what amazed me most,” B. added, “was that in this man, despite his complete powerlessness, despite the most negligible knowledge of the technique of the art, there was such a deep, such a clear and, one could say, instinctive understanding of art. He felt it so strongly and understood it within himself that it is no wonder he became confused in his own consciousness about himself and mistook himself, instead of a profound, instinctive critic of art, for a priest of the art itself, for a genius. At times, he succeeded in telling me such profound truths in his crude, simple language, devoid of any theory, that I was at a loss and could not understand how he had guessed all this, having never read anything, never studied anything, and I owe him a great deal,” B. added, “him and his advice in my own self-improvement. As for me,” B. continued, “I was calm about myself. I, too, passionately loved my art, although I knew at the very beginning of my path that nothing greater was given to me, that I would be, in the true sense, a laborer in art; but I am proud that I did not bury, like a lazy servant, what was given to me by nature, but, on the contrary, multiplied it a hundredfold, and if people praise my clarity in playing, are amazed by the developed mechanism, I owe all this to continuous, tireless work, a clear awareness of my abilities, voluntary self-effacement, and eternal hostility toward arrogance, early self-satisfaction, and laziness as a natural consequence of this self-satisfaction.”
B. in turn tried to share advice with his comrade, to whom he had been so subservient at the very beginning, but only angered him in vain. A cooling of relations ensued between them. Soon B. noticed that his comrade was more and more frequently being overcome by apathy, melancholy, and boredom, that his bursts of enthusiasm were becoming rarer and rarer, and that all this was followed by some kind of gloomy, savage despondency. Finally, Yefimov began to neglect his violin and sometimes did not touch it for weeks on end. It was not far to complete downfall, and soon the unfortunate man fell into every vice. What the landowner had warned him against came to pass: he gave himself over to excessive drinking. B. looked at him with horror; his advice had no effect, and besides, he was afraid to say a word. Gradually, Yefimov reached the utmost cynicism: he was not at all ashamed to live at B.’s expense and even acted as if he had every right to do so. Meanwhile, his means of subsistence were running out; B. somehow scraped by with lessons or by hiring himself out to play at evening parties for merchants, Germans, and poor officials, who, though paying little, paid something. Yefimov seemed unwilling even to notice his comrade’s need: he treated him harshly and did not deign to speak a single word to him for weeks on end. Once, B. remarked to him in the gentlest way that it would not be a bad idea for him not to neglect his violin too much, lest the instrument completely lose its habit of him; then Yefimov became completely angry and declared that he would deliberately never touch his violin, as if imagining that someone would be begging him on their knees to do so. Another time, B. needed a comrade to play at an evening party, and he invited Yefimov. This invitation infuriated Yefimov. He passionately declared that he was not a street violinist and would not be as vile as B. to degrade noble art by playing before base tradesmen who would understand nothing of his playing and talent. B. did not answer a word to this, but Yefimov, having thought about this invitation in the absence of his comrade, who had gone to play, imagined that it was all just a hint that he was living at B.’s expense, and a desire to let him know that he should also try to earn money. When B. returned, Yefimov suddenly began to reproach him for the baseness of his action and declared that he would not stay with him for another minute. He actually disappeared somewhere for two days, but on the third, he reappeared as if nothing had happened and again began to continue his former life.
Only former habit and friendship, and also the compassion B. felt for the ruined man, held him back from the intention of ending such a disgraceful life and parting with his comrade forever. Finally, they parted. Fortune smiled on B.: he acquired powerful patronage, and he managed to give a brilliant concert. By this time, he was already an excellent artist, and his rapidly growing fame soon secured him a position in the opera house orchestra, where he quickly achieved a well-deserved success. As they parted, he gave Yefimov money and tearfully implored him to return to the true path. B. still cannot recall him without a special feeling. His acquaintance with Yefimov was one of the deepest impressions of his youth. They began their careers together, became so passionately attached to each other, and even Yefimov’s very strangeness, his coarsest, harshest flaws, attached B. to him even more strongly. B. understood him; he saw right through him and foresaw how it would all end. They embraced as they parted, and both wept. Then Yefimov, through tears and sobs, uttered that he was a lost, most unfortunate man, that he had known it for a long time, but that only now did he clearly see his ruin.
“I have no talent!” he concluded, turning pale as death.
B. was deeply touched.
“Listen, Yegor Petrovich,” he told him, “what are you doing to yourself? You are only ruining yourself with your despair; you have neither patience nor courage. Now you say, in a fit of despondency, that you have no talent. That’s not true! You have talent, I assure you of that. You have it. I see this simply from the way you feel and understand art. I will prove this to you with your whole life. You told me about your past life. Even then, the same unconscious despair visited you. Then your first teacher, that strange man you told me so much about, first awakened in you a love for art and recognized your talent. You felt this as strongly and painfully then as you feel it now. But you yourself did not know what was happening to you. You were uncomfortable in the landowner’s house, and you yourself did not know what you wanted. Your teacher died too early. He left you only with vague aspirations and, most importantly, did not explain yourself to you. You felt that you needed another, wider path, that other goals were destined for you, but you did not understand how this would come about, and in your anguish, you hated everything that surrounded you then. Your six years of poverty and destitution were not in vain; you learned, you thought, you became aware of yourself and your abilities, you understand art and your purpose now. My friend, you need patience and courage. A fate more enviable than mine awaits you: you are a hundred times more of an artist than I am; but may God grant you even a tenth of my patience. Study and do not drink, as your good landowner told you, and most importantly—start over, from the alphabet. What torments you? Poverty, destitution? But poverty and destitution educate the artist. They are inseparable from the beginning. No one needs you now, no one wants to know you; that is how the world goes. Wait, something else will happen when they find out that you have talent. Envy, petty nastiness, and above all, stupidity will press upon you more heavily than destitution. Talent needs sympathy, it needs to be understood, but you will see what kind of people will surround you when you achieve even a little of your goal. They will belittle and look with contempt upon what you have achieved through hard work, privations, hunger, and sleepless nights. They will not cheer or console you, your future comrades; they will not point out what is good and true in you, but with malicious joy, they will pick up every mistake you make, they will point out exactly what is bad in you, what you are wrong about, and under the outward appearance of indifference and contempt for you, they will celebrate every mistake you make like a holiday (as if anyone were without mistakes!). You are arrogant, you are often inappropriately proud, and you can offend touchy insignificance, and then beware—you will be alone, and there are many of them; they will tear you apart with pins. Even I am beginning to experience this. Cheer up now! You are not quite so poor yet, you can live, do not disdain black labor, chop wood, as I chopped it at the evening parties of poor tradesmen. But you are impatient, you are sick with your impatience, you lack simplicity, you are too cunning, you think too much, you give your head too much work; you are bold in words and a coward when it comes to taking the bow in your hands. You are self-centered, and you lack courage. Be bolder, wait, study, and if you don’t rely on your own strength, then take a chance; you have fire, you have feeling. Perhaps you will reach your goal, and if not, still take a chance: you won’t lose in any case, because the gain is too great. Here, brother, our ‘taking a chance’ is a great thing!”
Yefimov listened to his former comrade with deep emotion. But as he spoke, the paleness left his cheeks; they brightened with a blush; his eyes sparkled with an unusual fire of boldness and hope. Soon this noble boldness turned into self-confidence, then into his usual insolence, and finally, when B. finished his admonition, Yefimov was already listening distractedly and impatiently. Nevertheless, he warmly squeezed his hand, thanked him, and, quick in his transitions from profound self-effacement and despondency to extreme arrogance and insolence, self-confidently declared that his friend should not worry about his fate, that he knew how to arrange his destiny, that he too hoped soon to gain patronage, would give a concert, and then would immediately gain both fame and money. B. shrugged his shoulders but did not contradict his former comrade, and they parted, though, of course, not for long. Yefimov immediately spent the money given to him and came back for it a second time, then a third, then a fourth, then a tenth, until finally B. lost patience and did not let himself be seen at home. Since then, he lost sight of him completely.
Several years passed. Once, B., returning home from a rehearsal, ran into a poorly dressed, intoxicated man in an alley, at the entrance to a dirty tavern, who called him by name. It was Yefimov. He had changed greatly, had become yellow, his face was swollen; it was evident that a dissolute life had indelibly left its mark on him. B. was extremely glad and, before he could exchange two words with him, followed him into the tavern, where the man dragged him. There, in a small, smoky back room, he took a closer look at his comrade. The man was practically in rags, in worn-out boots; his disheveled shirtfront was completely stained with wine. The hair on his head was beginning to turn gray and fall out.
“What has happened to you? Where are you now?” B. asked.
Yefimov was embarrassed, even intimidated at first, answered incoherently and abruptly, so that B. thought he was looking at a madman. Finally, Yefimov confessed that he could not say anything unless he was given some vodka to drink, and that in the tavern, they no longer trusted him. As he said this, he blushed, although he tried to cheer himself up with some defiant gesture; but it came out as something brazen, manufactured, intrusive, so that it was all very pathetic and aroused compassion in the kind B., who saw that his fears had been completely realized. However, he ordered vodka to be brought. Yefimov’s face changed with gratitude, and he was so lost that he was ready to kiss his benefactor’s hands with tears in his eyes. During lunch, B. learned with the greatest surprise that the unfortunate man was married. But he was even more amazed when he learned right there that his wife constituted all his misfortune and grief, and that marriage had completely killed all his talent.
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