A Clever Man
I wanted very much to introduce some of my Moscow friends to G.,
but from among all those whom I met during these days only one, my
old newspaper friend V. A. produced the impression of being
sufficiently alive, although he was as usual overloaded with work
and rushing from one place to another. But he was very interested
when I told him about G. and with G.′s permission I invited him to
have lunch at G.′s place.
G. summoned about fifteen of his people and arranged a lunch which,
at that time, was luxurious, with zakuski, pies, shashlik, Khaghetia
wine, and so on, in a word it was one of those Caucasian lunches
that begin at midday and last until the evening. He seated A. near
him, was very kind to him, entertained him all the time, and poured
out wine for him. My heart suddenly fell when I realized to what a
test I had brought my old friend. The fact was that everyone kept
silence. A. held out for five minutes. Then he began to talk. He
spoke of the war, of all our allies and enemies together and
separately; he communicated the opinions of all the public men of
Moscow and St. Petersburg upon all possible subjects; then he talked
about the desiccation of vegetables for the army (with which he was
then occupied in addition to his journalistic work), particularly
the desiccation of onions, then about artificial manures,
agricultural chemistry, and chemistry in general; about
"melioration"; about spiritism, the "materialization of hands," and
about what else I do not remember now. Neither G. nor anyone else
spoke a single word.
I was on the point of speaking fearing that A. would be offended,
but G. looked at me so fiercely that I stopped short. Besides, my
fears were in vain. Poor A. noticed nothing, he was so carried away
by his own talk and his own eloquence that he sat on happily at the
table and talked without stopping for a moment until four o′clock.
Then with great feeling he shook hands with G. and thanked him for
his "very interesting conversation." G., looking at me, laughed
slyly.
I felt very ashamed. They had made a fool of poor A. He certainly
could not have expected anything of the kind, so he was caught. I
realized that G. had given a demonstration to his people.
"There, you see," he said, when A. had gone. "He is called a clever
man. But he would not have noticed it even if I had taken his
trousers off him. Only let him talk. He wants nothing else. And
everybody is like that.
This one was much better than many others. He told no lies. And he
really knew what he talked about, in his own way of course. But
think, what use is he? He is no longer young. And perhaps this was
the one time in his life when there was an opportunity of hearing
the truth. And he talked himself all the time."