them into competent and incompetent. No other classification existed for him. Honesty and
rectitude were only signs of competence. Drinking, gambling, and debauchery were
permissible, but must not be allowed to interfere with business. Believing in God was rather
stupid, but religion ought be safeguarded, as the common people must have some principle
to restrain them, otherwise they would not work. Punishment is only necessary as deterrent.
There was no need to go away for holidays, as it was just as nice in town. And so on. He
was a widower and had no children, but lived on a large scale, as though he had a family,
and paid thousand roubles a year for his flat.
The second visitor, Kukushkin, an actual civil councillor though a young man, was short,
and was conspicuous for his extremely unpleasant appearance, which was due to the
disproportion between his fat, puffy body and his lean little face. His lips were puckered up
suavely, and his little trimmed moustaches looked as though they had been fixed on with
glue. He was a man with the manners of a lizard. He did not walk, but, as it were, crept
along with tiny steps, squirming and sniggering, and when he laughed he showed his teeth.
He was a clerk on special commissions, and did nothing, though he received a good salary,
especially in the summer, when special and lucrative jobs were found for him. He was a
man of personal ambition, not only to the marrow of his bones, but more fundamentally --
to the last drop of his blood; but even in his ambitions he was petty and did not rely on
himself, but was building his career on the chance favour flung him by his superiors. For
the sake of obtaining some foreign decoration, or for the sake of having his name
mentioned in the newspapers as having been present at some special service in the company
of other great personages, he was ready to submit to any kind of humiliation, to beg, to
flatter, to promise. He flattered Orlov and Pekarsky from cowardice, because he thought
they were powerful; he flattered Polya and me because we were in the service of a powerful
man. Whenever I took off his fur coat he tittered and asked me: "Stepan, are you married?"
and then unseemly vulgarities followed -- by way of showing me special attention.
Kukushkin flattered Orlov's weaknesses, humoured his corrupted and blasé ways; to please
him he affected malicious raillery and atheism, in his company criticised persons before
whom in other places he would slavishly grovel. When at supper they talked of love and
women, he pretended to be a subtle and perverse voluptuary. As a rule, one may say,
Petersburg rakes are fond of talking of their abnormal tastes. Some young actual civil
councillor is perfectly satisfied with the embraces of his cook or of some unhappy street-
walker on the Nevsky Prospect, but to listen to him you would think he was contaminated
by all the vices of East and West combined, that he was an honourary member of a dozen
iniquitous secret societies and was already marked by the police. Kukushkin lied about
himself in an unconscionable way, and they did not exactly disbelieve him, but paid little
heed to his incredible stories.
The third guest was Gruzin, the son of a worthy and learned general; a man of Orlov's age,
with long hair, short-sighted eyes, and gold spectacles. I remember his long white fingers,
that looked like a pianist's; and, indeed, there was something of a musician, of a virtuoso,
about his whole figure. The first violins in orchestras look just like that. He used to cough,
suffered from migraine, and seemed invalidish and delicate. Probably at home he was
dressed and undressed like a baby. He had finished at the College of Jurisprudence, and had
at first served in the Department of Justice, then he was transferred to the Senate; he left
that, and through patronage had received a post in the Department of Crown Estates, and
had soon afterwards given that up. In my time he was serving in Orlov's department; he was
his head-clerk, but he said that he should soon exchange into the Department of Justice