Speaker 1: Colson Media book Club book Club book Club. Hello, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the Closlone Media book Club, the only book
Speaker 1: club where you don't have to do the reading because
Speaker 1: I do the reading for you. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy,
Speaker 1: and every week I bring you stories. And this week
Speaker 1: you're gonna be so surprised about what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring you a story. This story is
Speaker 1: by Tolstoy, that's right, the most famous author, guy who
Speaker 1: no one actually reads. I mean some people read. He
Speaker 1: rise very long books and they're very Russian. And I
Speaker 1: decided to read the story because I just finished reading
Speaker 1: a bunch of stories by mcgone, the Mexican anarchist, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I think I'm going to do some
Speaker 1: like anarchist fiction as a kick. And Tolstoy's an interesting character.
Speaker 1: He's often seen as the sort of founder of Christian anarchism,
Speaker 1: and whenever he comes up in like every history episode
Speaker 1: that I do, if it's vaguely related to Eastern Europe
Speaker 1: or in Russia in particular. But I haven't actually done
Speaker 1: as much of a deep dive on him in particular
Speaker 1: as I would like to, partly because I suspect he
Speaker 1: was actually kind of a terrible person, but I don't know,
Speaker 1: because I haven't done it yet. And I like reading
Speaker 1: these stories not because I'm like, this is the way
Speaker 1: that we should all think about politics, but instead as
Speaker 1: ways of understanding, like this is the way that some
Speaker 1: people were thinking about politics. These are influential ways of
Speaker 1: understanding ideas. And the thing about mcgaughone that we read
Speaker 1: in the last two weeks is that he wrote a
Speaker 1: fair amount, but his primary thing was that he was
Speaker 1: a revolutionary, not that he was a writer, and in
Speaker 1: particular a writer of fiction. Although again he wrote a
Speaker 1: fair amount of fiction, but they're very simple and direct stories,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't make them worse or better. But Tolstoy
Speaker 1: is like a writer, and he's like a writer's writer
Speaker 1: and stuff, and so I thought it'd be an interesting
Speaker 1: comparison to make this particular story. It's called After the Dance.
Speaker 1: It's also translated as After the Ball. It was written
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh three, and it wasn't unpublished. It wasn't
Speaker 1: published until nineteen eleven. He died in nineteen ten, so
Speaker 1: this is published posthumously, and so it's set well after
Speaker 1: he's written the books that have made him famous. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this story, and you say that a man cannot of
Speaker 1: himself understand what is good and evil, that it is
Speaker 1: all environment, that the environment swamps the man. But I
Speaker 1: believe it is all chance. Take my own case. Thus
Speaker 1: spoke our excellent friend Ivan Vasilovitch, after a conversation between
Speaker 1: us on the impossibility of improving individual character without a
Speaker 1: change of conditions under which men live. Nobody had actually
Speaker 1: said that one could not of oneself understand good and evil.
Speaker 1: But it was a habit of Ivan Vasilovitch to answer
Speaker 1: in this way the thoughts aroused in his own mind
Speaker 1: by conversation, and to illustrate those thoughts by relating incidents
Speaker 1: in his own life. He often quite forgot the reason
Speaker 1: for his story in telling it, but he always told
Speaker 1: it with great sincerity and feeling. He did so. Now
Speaker 1: take my own case. My whole life was molded not
Speaker 1: by environment, but by something quite different. By what. Then
Speaker 1: we asked, Oh, that is a long story. I should
Speaker 1: have to tell you about a great many things to
Speaker 1: make you understand well. Tell us. Then, ivan Vasilovitch thought
Speaker 1: a little and shook his head. My whole life, he said,
Speaker 1: was changed in one night, or rather mourning why what happened?
Speaker 1: One of us asked, what happened was that I was
Speaker 1: very much in love. I have been in love many times,
Speaker 1: but this was the most serious of all. It is
Speaker 1: a thing of the past. She has married daughters now.
Speaker 1: It was Varenka b ivan Vasilov mentioned her surname. Even
Speaker 1: at fifty she is remarkably handsome, But in her youth,
Speaker 1: at eighteen, she was exquisite, tall, slender, graceful, and stately. Yes,
Speaker 1: stately is the word. She held herself very erect by instinct,
Speaker 1: as it were, and carried her head high, and that,
Speaker 1: together with her beauty and height, gave her a queenly
Speaker 1: air in spite of being thin, even bony. One might say,
Speaker 1: it might indeed have been deterring had it not been
Speaker 1: for her smile, which was always gay and cordial, and
Speaker 1: for the charming light in her eyes, and for her
Speaker 1: youthful sweetness. What an entrancing description you give ivan Vassilovitch description. Indeed,
Speaker 1: I could not possibly describe her so that you could
Speaker 1: appreciate her. But that does not matter. What I am
Speaker 1: going to tell you happened in the forties. I was
Speaker 1: at the time a student in a provincial university. I
Speaker 1: don't know whether it was a good thing or no.
Speaker 1: But we had no political clubs, no theory in our universities.
Speaker 1: Then we were simply young and spent our time as
Speaker 1: young men do, studying and amusing ourselves. I was a
Speaker 1: very gay, lively, careless fellow, and had plenty of money too.
Speaker 1: I had a fine horse and used to go to
Speaker 1: boggaining with the young ladies. Skating had not yet come
Speaker 1: into fashion. I went to drinking parties with my comrades.
Speaker 1: In those days we drank nothing but champagne. If we
Speaker 1: had no champagne, we drank nothing at all. We never
Speaker 1: drank vodka as they do now. Evening parties and balls
Speaker 1: were my favorite amusements. I danced well, and I was
Speaker 1: not an ugly fellow. Come, there is no need to
Speaker 1: be modest interrupted a lady near him. We have seen
Speaker 1: your photograph. Not ugly. Indeed, you are a handsome fellow.
Speaker 1: Handsome if you like, that does not matter. When my
Speaker 1: love for her was at its strongest on the last
Speaker 1: day of the carnival, I was at a ball at
Speaker 1: the Provincial Marshals. A good natured old man, rich and hospitable,
Speaker 1: and a court chamberlain. The guests were welcomed by his wife,
Speaker 1: who was as good natured as himself. She was dressed
Speaker 1: in puce colored velvet and had a diamond diadem on
Speaker 1: her forehead, and her plump, old white shoulders and bosom
Speaker 1: were bare, like the portraits of Empress Elizabeth, the daughter
Speaker 1: of Peter the Great. It was a delightful ball. It
Speaker 1: was a splendid room with a gallery for the orchestra,
Speaker 1: which was famous at the time, and consisted of serfs
Speaker 1: belonging to a musical landowner. The refreshments were magnificent, and
Speaker 1: the champagne flowed in rivers. Though I was fond of
Speaker 1: the champagne, I did not drink that night, because without
Speaker 1: it I was drunk with love. But I made up
Speaker 1: for it by dancing waltzes and polkas till I was
Speaker 1: ready to drop, of course, whenever possible. With Varenka, she
Speaker 1: wore a white dress with a pink sash, white shoes,
Speaker 1: and white kid gloves which did not quite reach to
Speaker 1: her thin pointed elbow. A disgusting engineer named Anaismov robbed
Speaker 1: me of the marazuka with her to this day I
Speaker 1: cannot forgive him. He asked her for the dance the
Speaker 1: minute she arrived, and while I had driven to the
Speaker 1: hairdressers to get a pair of gloves and was late.
Speaker 1: So I did not dance the Mazurka with her, but
Speaker 1: with a German girl to whom I had previously paid
Speaker 1: a little attention. But I am afraid I did not
Speaker 1: behave very politely to her that evening. I hardly spoke
Speaker 1: or looked at her, and saw nothing but the tall,
Speaker 1: slendid figure in a white dress with a pink sash,
Speaker 1: a flushed, beaming, dimpled face, and sweet kind eyes. I
Speaker 1: was not alone. They were all looking at her with admiration,
Speaker 1: the men and women alike. Although she outshone all of them,
Speaker 1: they could not help but admiring her. Although I was
Speaker 1: not nominally her partner for the Mazurka, I did, as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, dance nearly the whole time with her.
Speaker 1: She always came forward boldly the whole length of the
Speaker 1: room to pick me out. I flew to meet her
Speaker 1: without waiting to be chosen, and she thanked me with
Speaker 1: a smile for my intuition. When I was brought up
Speaker 1: to her with somebody else, and she guessed wrongly. She
Speaker 1: took the other man's hand with a shrug of her
Speaker 1: slim shoulders, and smiled at me regretfully, much like the
Speaker 1: regret that you might feel if you don't take advantage
Speaker 1: of pressing the skip forward several times button, or listening
Speaker 1: to ads and buying stuff. And we're back Whenever there
Speaker 1: was a waltz figure in the mazurka, I waltzed with
Speaker 1: her for a long time, and breathing fast and smiling,
Speaker 1: she would say, encore. And I went on waltzing and waltzing,
Speaker 1: as though unconscious of any bodily existence. Come now, how
Speaker 1: could you be unconscious of it? If your arm was
Speaker 1: around her waist, you must have been conscious not only
Speaker 1: of your own existence, but of hers, said one of
Speaker 1: the party, Ivan Vassilovitch, cried out, almost shouting in anger.
Speaker 1: There you are moderns all over. Nowadays you think of
Speaker 1: nothing but the body. It was different in our day,
Speaker 1: the more I was in love, the less corporeal she
Speaker 1: was in my eyes. Nowadays you think of nothing but
Speaker 1: the body. Nowadays you set legs, ankles, and I don't
Speaker 1: know what you undressed the women you were in love
Speaker 1: with in my eyes, as Alfonse Carr said, and he
Speaker 1: was a good writer. The one I loved was always
Speaker 1: draped in robes of bronze. We never thought of doing so.
Speaker 1: We tried to veil her nakedness like Noah's good natured son.
Speaker 1: Oh well, you can't understand. Don't pay attention to him,
Speaker 1: go on, said one of them. Well, I danced for
Speaker 1: the most part with her and did not notice how
Speaker 1: time was passing. The musicians kept playing the same mazurka
Speaker 1: tunes over and over again, in desperate exhaustion. You know
Speaker 1: what it is. Towards the end of a ball, Papa's
Speaker 1: and mamas were already getting up from the card tables
Speaker 1: in the drawing room, and expectation of supper, the men
Speaker 1: servants were running to and fro bringing in things. It
Speaker 1: was nearly three o'clock. I had to make the most
Speaker 1: of the last minutes. I chose her again for the mazurka,
Speaker 1: and for the hundredth time, we danced across the room
Speaker 1: the quadrille. After supper is mine, I said, taking her
Speaker 1: to her place. Of course, if I am not carried
Speaker 1: off home, she said, with a smile, I won't give
Speaker 1: you up, I said, give me my fan anyhow, she answered,
Speaker 1: I am so sorry to part with it, I said,
Speaker 1: handing her a cheap white fan. Well, here's something to
Speaker 1: console you, she said, plucking a feather out of the
Speaker 1: fan and giving it to me. I took the feather
Speaker 1: and could only express my rapture and gratitude with my eyes.
Speaker 1: I was not only pleased and gay, I was happy, delighted.
Speaker 1: I was good. I was not myself but some being
Speaker 1: not of this earth, knowing nothing of evil. I hid
Speaker 1: the feather in my glove and stood there, unable to
Speaker 1: tear myself away from her. Look they are urging father
Speaker 1: to dance, she said to me, pointing to the tall,
Speaker 1: stately figure of her father, a colonel with silver epulets,
Speaker 1: who was standing in the doorway with some ladies. Varenka,
Speaker 1: come here, exclaimed our hostess, and the lady with a
Speaker 1: diamond fairron air with her shoulders like Elizabeth in a
Speaker 1: loud voice. Varenka went to the door, and I followed her.
Speaker 1: Persuade your father to dance the mazurka with me, Mancherie,
Speaker 1: do please, Peter Vassilovitch, she said, turning to the colonel
Speaker 1: Varenka's father was a very handsome, well preserved old man.
Speaker 1: He had good color mustaches curled in the style of
Speaker 1: Nikolas the First, and white whiskers which met the mustaches.
Speaker 1: His hair was combed on to his forehead, and a
Speaker 1: bright smile like his daughter's was on his lips. In
Speaker 1: his eyes, he was splendidly set up, with a broad
Speaker 1: military chest, on which he wore some decorations, and he
Speaker 1: had powerful shoulders and long, slim legs. He was that
Speaker 1: ultra military type produced by the discipline of Emperor Nicholas
Speaker 1: the First. When we approached the door, the colonel was
Speaker 1: just refusing to dance, saying that he had quite forgotten
Speaker 1: how But at that instant he smiled, swung his arm
Speaker 1: gracefully round to the left, drew his sword from its sheath,
Speaker 1: handed it to an obliging young man who stood near,
Speaker 1: and smoothed his suede glove on his right hand. Everything
Speaker 1: must be done according to rule, he said, with a smile.
Speaker 1: He took the hand of his daughter and stood one
Speaker 1: quarter turned, waiting for the music. At the first sound
Speaker 1: of the mazurka, he stamped one foot smartly through the
Speaker 1: other forward, and at first slowly and smoothly, then buoyantly
Speaker 1: and impetuously, with stamping of feet and clicking of boots,
Speaker 1: his tall, imposing figure moved through the length of the room.
Speaker 1: Varenka swayed gracefully beside him, rhythmically and easily, making her
Speaker 1: steps short or long with her little feet and their
Speaker 1: white satin slippers. All the people in the room followed
Speaker 1: every movement of the couple. As for me, I not
Speaker 1: only admired, I regarded them with enraptured sympathy. I was
Speaker 1: particularly impressed with the old gentleman's boots. They were not
Speaker 1: the modern pointed affairs, but were made of cheap leather,
Speaker 1: square toed, and evidently built by the regimental cobbler in
Speaker 1: order that his daughter might dress and go out in society.
Speaker 1: He did not buy fashionable boots, but wore homemade ones,
Speaker 1: I thought, and his square toes seemed to me most touching.
Speaker 1: It was obvious that in his time he had been
Speaker 1: a good dancer, but now he was too heavy and
Speaker 1: his legs had not spring enough for all the beautiful
Speaker 1: steps he tried to take. Still, he contrived to go
Speaker 1: twice around the room, when at the end, standing with
Speaker 1: legs apart. He suddenly clicked his feet together and felt
Speaker 1: on one knee a bit heavily, and she danced gracefully
Speaker 1: around him, smiling and adjusting her skirts, and the whole
Speaker 1: room applauded. Rising with an effort, he tenderly took his
Speaker 1: daughter's face between his hands. He kissed her on the forehead,
Speaker 1: and brought her to me. Under the impression that I
Speaker 1: was her partner for the Mazurka, I said, I was
Speaker 1: not well. Never mind, just go around the room once
Speaker 1: with her, he said, smiling kindly, as he replaced his
Speaker 1: sword in the sheath. As the contents of the bottle
Speaker 1: flow readily when the first drop has been poured, so
Speaker 1: my love for Verenka seemed to set free the whole
Speaker 1: force of loving within me. In surrounding her, it embraced
Speaker 1: the world. I loved the hostess with her diet, him
Speaker 1: and her shoulders, like Elizabeth and her husband, and her guests,
Speaker 1: and her footman, even the engineer Anismov, who felt peevish
Speaker 1: towards me. As for Varenka's father, with his homemade boots
Speaker 1: and his kind smile, so like her own. I felt
Speaker 1: a sort of tenderness for him. That was almost rapture.
Speaker 1: After summer, I danced the promised quadrille with her, and
Speaker 1: though I had been infinitely happy before, I grew still
Speaker 1: happier with every moment. We did not speak of love.
Speaker 1: I neither asked myself nor her whether she loved me.
Speaker 1: It was quite enough to know that I loved her.
Speaker 1: I had only one fear that something might come to
Speaker 1: interfere with my great joy. When I went home and
Speaker 1: began to undress for the night, I found it quite
Speaker 1: out of the question. I held the little feather out
Speaker 1: of her fan in my hand, and one of her gloves,
Speaker 1: which she gave me when I helped her into the
Speaker 1: carriage after her mother. Looking at these things, and without
Speaker 1: closing my eyes, I could see her before me as
Speaker 1: she was for an instant when she thought she had
Speaker 1: to choose between two partners. She tried to guess what
Speaker 1: kind of person was represented in me, and I could
Speaker 1: hear her sweet voice as she said, pride, am I right,
Speaker 1: and merrily gave me her hand. At supper, she took
Speaker 1: the first sip from my glass of champagne, looking at
Speaker 1: me over the rim with her caressing glance. But plainest
Speaker 1: of all, I could see her as she danced with
Speaker 1: her father, gliding along beside him and looking at the
Speaker 1: admiring observers with pride and happiness. He and she were
Speaker 1: united in my mind in one rush of pathetic tenderness.
Speaker 1: And you know what else is awkward, like the way
Speaker 1: that people in old timey describe things like this, cutting
Speaker 1: to ads in the middle of a story that's also awkward.
Speaker 1: And yet here we all are, and we're back. I
Speaker 1: was living then with my brother, who has since died.
Speaker 1: He disliked going out and never went to dances, and
Speaker 1: besides he was busy preparing for his last university examinations
Speaker 1: and was leading a very regular life. He was asleep.
Speaker 1: I looked at him, his head buried in the pillow
Speaker 1: and half covered with the quilt, and I affectionately pitied him,
Speaker 1: pitying him for his ignorance of the bliss I was
Speaker 1: experiencing our surf Patrushia had met me with a candle,
Speaker 1: ready to undress me, but I sent him away. His
Speaker 1: sleepy face and toussled hair seemed to me so touching.
Speaker 1: Trying not to make a noise, I went to my
Speaker 1: room on tiptoe and sat down on my bed. No,
Speaker 1: I was too happy. I could not sleep, Besides, it
Speaker 1: was too hot in the rooms. Without taking off my uniform,
Speaker 1: I went quietly into the hall, put on my overcoat,
Speaker 1: opened the front door, and stepped out into the street.
Speaker 1: It was after four when I had left the ball.
Speaker 1: Going home and stopping there a while had occupied two hours,
Speaker 1: so by the time I went out it was dawn.
Speaker 1: It was regular carnival weather, foggy, and the road full
Speaker 1: of water soaked, snow just melting, and water dripping from
Speaker 1: the eaves. Varenka's family lived on the edge of town,
Speaker 1: near a large field, one end of which was a
Speaker 1: parade ground. At the other end was a boarding school
Speaker 1: for young ladies. I passed through our empty little street
Speaker 1: and came to the main thoroughfare, where I met pedestrians
Speaker 1: and sledges laden with wood, the runners grating the road.
Speaker 1: The horses swung with regular paces beneath their shining yokes,
Speaker 1: their backs covered with straw mats, and their heads wet
Speaker 1: with rain, while the drivers in enormous boots splashed through
Speaker 1: the mud beside the sledges. All of this, the very
Speaker 1: horses themselves seemed to me stimulating and fascinating, full of suggestion.
Speaker 1: When I approached the field near their house, I saw
Speaker 1: at one end of it, in the direction of the
Speaker 1: parade ground, something very huge and black. I heard sounds
Speaker 1: of fife and drum proceeding from it. My heart had
Speaker 1: been full of song, and I had heard an imagination
Speaker 1: the tune of the mazurka. But this was very harsh music.
Speaker 1: It was not pleasant. What can that be? I thought,
Speaker 1: and went towards the sound by a slippery path through
Speaker 1: the center of the field. Walking about a hundred paces,
Speaker 1: I began to distinguish many black objects through the mist.
Speaker 1: They were evidently soldiers. It is probably a drill, I thought,
Speaker 1: So I went along in that direction, in company with
Speaker 1: a blacksmith who wore a dirty coat and an apron,
Speaker 1: and he was carrying something. He walked ahead of me.
Speaker 1: As we approached the place, the soldiers in black uniforms
Speaker 1: stood in two rows, facing each other, motionless, their guns
Speaker 1: at rest. Behind them stood the fifes and drums incessantly
Speaker 1: repeating the same unpleasant tune. What are they doing, I
Speaker 1: asked the blacksmith, who halted at my side. A tartar
Speaker 1: is being beaten through the ranks. For his attempt to dessert,
Speaker 1: said the blacksmith in an angry tone, as he looked
Speaker 1: intently at the far end of the line. I looked
Speaker 1: in the same direction and saw between the files something
Speaker 1: horrid approaching me. The thing that approached me was a
Speaker 1: man stripped to the waist, fastened with cords to the
Speaker 1: guns of two soldiers who were leading him. At his side,
Speaker 1: an officer and overcoat and cap was walking, whose figure
Speaker 1: had a familiar look. The victim advanced under the blows
Speaker 1: that rained upon him from both sides, his whole body plunging,
Speaker 1: his feet dragging through the snow. Now he threw himself backward,
Speaker 1: and the subalterns who led him thrust him forward. Now
Speaker 1: he fell forward, and they pulled him up short while
Speaker 1: ever at his side marched the tall officer with firm
Speaker 1: and nervous pace. It was Varenka's father, with his rosy
Speaker 1: face and white mustache. At each stroke, the man, as
Speaker 1: if a maze, turned his face, grimacing with pain, towards
Speaker 1: the side whence the blow came, and, showing his white teeth,
Speaker 1: repeated the same words over and over, but I could
Speaker 1: only hear what the words were. When he came quite near.
Speaker 1: He did not speak them. He sobbed them out. Brothers
Speaker 1: have mercy on me, Brothers have mercy on me. But
Speaker 1: the brothers had no mercy. And when the procession came
Speaker 1: close to me, I saw how a soldier who stood
Speaker 1: opposite me took a firm step forward, and, lifting his
Speaker 1: stick with a whirr, brought it down upon the man's back.
Speaker 1: The man plunged forward, but the subalterns pulled him back,
Speaker 1: and another blow came down from the other side, then
Speaker 1: from this side, and then from the other. The colonel
Speaker 1: marched beside him, and, looking now at his feet and
Speaker 1: now at the man, inhaled the air, puffed out his cheeks,
Speaker 1: and breathed it out between his protruded lips. When they
Speaker 1: passed the place where I stood, I caught a glimpse
Speaker 1: between the two files of the back of the man
Speaker 1: who was being punished. It was something so many colored, wet, red, unnatural,
Speaker 1: that I could hardly believe it was a human body.
Speaker 1: My God, muttered the blacksmith. The procession moved further away,
Speaker 1: the blows continued to rain upon the writhing, falling creature.
Speaker 1: The fifes shrilled, and the drums beat and the tall,
Speaker 1: imposing figure of the colonel moved alongside the man, just
Speaker 1: as before. Then, suddenly the colonel stopped and rapidly approached
Speaker 1: a man in the ranks. I'll teach you to hit
Speaker 1: him gently. I heard his furious voice say, will you
Speaker 1: pat him like that? Will you? And I saw how
Speaker 1: his strong hand in the suede glove struck the weak, bloodless,
Speaker 1: terrified soldier from not bringing down his stick with sufficient
Speaker 1: strength on the red neck of the tartar. Bring new sticks,
Speaker 1: he cried, and looking round, he saw me, assuming an
Speaker 1: air of not knowing me, and with a ferocious, angry frown,
Speaker 1: he hastily turned away. I felt so utterly ashamed, I
Speaker 1: didn't know where to look. It was as if I
Speaker 1: had been detected in a disgraceful act. I dropped my
Speaker 1: eyes and quickly hurried home. All the way I had
Speaker 1: the drums beating and the fifes whistling in my ears,
Speaker 1: and I heard the words brothers, have mercy on me?
Speaker 1: Or will you pat him? Will you? My heart was
Speaker 1: full of physical disgust that was almost sickness, so much
Speaker 1: so that I halted several times on my way, where
Speaker 1: I had the feeling that I was going to be
Speaker 1: really sick from all the horrors that had possessed me
Speaker 1: that night. I do not remember how I got home
Speaker 1: and got to bed, but the moment I was about
Speaker 1: to fall asleep, I heard and saw again all that
Speaker 1: had happened, and I sprang up. Evidently he knows something
Speaker 1: I do not know. I thought about the colonel. If
Speaker 1: I knew what he knows, I should certainly grasp understand
Speaker 1: what I have just seen, and it would not cause
Speaker 1: me much suffering. But however much I thought about it,
Speaker 1: I could not understand the thing that the Colonel knew.
Speaker 1: It was evening before I could get to sleep, and
Speaker 1: then only after calling on a friend and drinking till
Speaker 1: I was quite drunk. Do you think I had come
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that the deed I had witnessed was wicked? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: Since it was done with such assurance and was recognized
Speaker 1: by everyone as indispensable, they doubtless knew something which I
Speaker 1: did not know. So I thought and tried to understand,
Speaker 1: but no matter, I could never understand it then or afterwards,
Speaker 1: and not being able to grasp it, I could not
Speaker 1: enter the service as I had intended. I don't mean
Speaker 1: only the military service. I did not enter the civil
Speaker 1: service either, And so now I have been of no
Speaker 1: use whatsoever, as you can now see. Yes, we know
Speaker 1: how useless you've been, said one of us. Tell us, rather,
Speaker 1: how many people would be of any use at all
Speaker 1: if it hadn't been for you. Oh that's utter nonsense,
Speaker 1: said Ivan Vassilovitch with genuine annoyance. Well, then what about
Speaker 1: the love affair? My love it decreased from that day when,
Speaker 1: as often happened, and she looked dreamy and meditative. I
Speaker 1: instantly recollected the colonel on the parade ground and felt
Speaker 1: so awkward and uncomfortable that I began to see her
Speaker 1: less frequently. So my love came to nought. Yes, such
Speaker 1: chances arise, and they alter and direct a man's whole life,
Speaker 1: he said, And summing up, and you say, and that's
Speaker 1: the end of the story, this story. And now I
Speaker 1: always pointed out that I always say this story is
Speaker 1: interesting to me. But although I won't say I like
Speaker 1: this story so much. Instead, I'll say that the story
Speaker 1: is really interesting in me, and I think it's really
Speaker 1: well written. But it's also, like I mean, it's written
Speaker 1: in from my point of view fundamentally misogynist form. Right,
Speaker 1: it is fundamentally I had this thing, I had this
Speaker 1: love of this beautiful woman, and it fell apart. I
Speaker 1: lost it because of my disgust at her father. Right,
Speaker 1: But interestingly and not this story is actually based on
Speaker 1: what happened to his brother, Serge, who was courting the
Speaker 1: daughter of a commander and then watched the mander overseeing
Speaker 1: the beating of a soldier, was like, I can't do
Speaker 1: any of this. I want to have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with any of this, and like stopped courting the daughter.
Speaker 1: And the fact that it's related to that is like
Speaker 1: particularly interesting, right because at the beginning of this story,
Speaker 1: the protagonist Ivan Vasilovich is like, oh, I was living
Speaker 1: with my brother who since died, and this is written
Speaker 1: about his brother, only the story didn't come out until
Speaker 1: actually he died, and so it's kind of a weird
Speaker 1: ghost story, I don't know whatever. And it's not written
Speaker 1: in a form that people would write most stories now,
Speaker 1: where it's this entire build up and then this complete reversal.
Speaker 1: You know, this story is absolutely cut into two completely
Speaker 1: opposite parts to give us this sense of this high right,
Speaker 1: this like you know, overwrought love story, although I think
Speaker 1: that all along the overall love story is like and
Speaker 1: then the serfs brought us stuff, But maybe everyone just
Speaker 1: I don't know, whatever, you know. It seems to be
Speaker 1: aware of class, but maybe it's not aware of class.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just hyper aware of class. It doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like it's aware of the feminist implications of itself. But
Speaker 1: just yeah, this idea of like he can't even be mad.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, yes, I'm clearly the bad one because
Speaker 1: I don't understand how society works. Is like such an
Speaker 1: interesting and dark take. And yeah, that's the story about
Speaker 1: a soldier running a gauntlet told from the point of
Speaker 1: view of some rich guy who watches it and it
Speaker 1: fox his entire life up. And it's called After the
Speaker 1: Dance by Tolstoi. Thanks for listening, and next week I'll
Speaker 1: read you more stories. It could Happen here as a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check
Speaker 1: us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts. You can find sources where It
Speaker 1: Could Happen here. Updated monthly at cool zonemedia dot com,
Speaker 1: slash sources, thanks for listening.