Leo Tolstoy Barefoot by Ilya Repin (1844–1930)
CHAPTER XV
"Yes, jealousy, that is another of the secrets of marriage known to all
and concealed by all. Besides the general cause of the mutual hatred of
husbands and wives resulting from complicity in the pollution of a human
being, and also from other causes, the inexhaustible source of marital
wounds is jealousy. But by tacit consent it is determined to conceal them
from all, and we conceal them. Knowing them, each one supposes in himself
that it is an unfortunate peculiarity, and not a common destiny. So it was
with me, and it had to be so. There cannot fail to be jealousy between
husbands and wives who live immorally. If they cannot sacrifice their
pleasures for the welfare of their child, they conclude therefrom, and
truly, that they will not sacrifice their pleasures for, I will not say
happiness and tranquillity (since one may sin in secret), but even for the
sake of conscience. Each one knows very well that neither admits any high
moral reasons for not betraying the other, since in their mutual relations
they fail in the requirements of morality, and from that time distrust and
watch each other.
"Oh, what a frightful feeling of jealousy ! I do not speak of that real
jealousy which has foundations (it is tormenting, but it promises an
issue), but of that unconscious jealousy which inevitably accompanies
every immoral marriage, and which, having no cause, has no end. This
jealousy is frightful. Frightful, that is the word.
"And this is it. A young man speaks to my wife. He looks at her with a
smile, and, as it seems to me, he surveys her body. How does he dare to
think of her, to think of the possibility of a romance with her ? And how
can she, seeing this, tolerate him ? Not only does she tolerate him, but
she seems pleased. I even see that she puts herself to trouble on his
account. And in my soul there rises such a hatred for her that each of her
words, each gesture, disgusts me. She notices it, she knows not what to
do, and how assume an air of indifferent animation? Ah! I suffer! That
makes her gay, she is content. And my hatred increases tenfold, but I do
not dare to give it free force, because at the bottom of my soul I know
that there are no real reasons for it, and I remain in my seat, feigning
indifference, and exaggerating my attention and courtesy to HIM.
"Then I get angry with myself. I desire to leave the room, to leave them
alone, and I do, in fact, go out; but scarcely am I outside when I am
invaded by a fear of what is taking place within my absence. I go in
again, inventing some pretext. Or sometimes I do not go in; I remain near
the door, and listen. How can she humiliate herself and humiliate me by
placing me in this cowardly situation of suspicion and espionage ? Oh,
abomination ! Oh, the wicked animal ! And he too, what does he think of you ?
But he is like all men. He is what I was before my marriage. It gives him
pleasure. He even smiles when he looks at me, as much as to say: 'What
have you to do with this ? It is my turn now.'
"This feeling is horrible. Its burn is unendurable. To entertain this
feeling toward any one, to once suspect a man of lusting after my wife,
was enough to spoil this man forever in my eyes, as if he had been
sprinkled with vitriol. Let me once become jealous of a being, and
nevermore could I re-establish with him simple human relations, and my
eyes flashed when I looked at him.
"As for my wife, so many times had I enveloped her with this moral
vitriol, with this jealous hatred, that she was degraded thereby. In the
periods of this causeless hatred I gradually uncrowned her. I covered her
with shame in my imagination.
"I invented impossible knaveries. I suspected, I am ashamed to say, that
she, this queen of 'The Thousand and One Nights,' deceived me with my
serf, under my very eyes, and laughing at me.
"Thus, with each new access of jealousy (I speak always of causeless
jealousy), I entered into the furrow dug formerly by my filthy suspicions,
and I continually deepened it. She did the same thing. If I have reasons
to be jealous, she who knew my past had a thousand times more. And she was
more ill-natured in her jealousy than I. And the sufferings that I felt
from her jealousy were different, and likewise very painful.
"The situation may be described thus. We are living more or less
tranquilly. I am even gay and contented. Suddenly we start a conversation
on some most commonplace subject, and directly she finds herself
disagreeing with me upon matters concerning which we have been generally
in accord. And furthermore I see that, without any necessity therefor, she
is becoming irritated. I think that she has a nervous attack, or else that
the subject of conversation is really disagreeable to her. We talk of
something else, and that begins again. Again she torments me, and becomes
irritated. I am astonished and look for a reason. Why ? For what ? She keeps
silence, answers me with monosyllables, evidently making allusions to
something. I begin to divine that the reason of all this is that I have
taken a few walks in the garden with her cousin, to whom I did not give
even a thought. I begin to divine, but I cannot say so. If I say so, I
confirm her suspicions. I interrogate her, I question her. She does not
answer, but she sees that I understand, and that confirms her suspicions.
"'What is the matter with you ?' I ask.
"'Nothing, I am as well as usual,' she answers.
"And at the same time, like a crazy woman, she gives utterance to the
silliest remarks, to the most inexplicable explosions of spite.
"Sometimes I am patient, but at other times I break out with anger. Then
her own irritation is launched forth in a flood of insults, in charges of
imaginary crimes and all carried to the highest degree by sobs, tears, and
retreats through the house to the most improbable spots. I go to look for
her. I am ashamed before people, before the children, but there is nothing
to be done. She is in a condition where I feel that she is ready for
anything. I run, and finally find her. Nights of torture follow, in which
both of us, with exhausted nerves, appease each other, after the most
cruel words and accusations.
"Yes, jealousy, causeless jealousy, is the condition of our debauched
conjugal life. And throughout my marriage never did I cease to feel it and
to suffer from it. There were two periods in which I suffered most
intensely. The first time was after the birth of our first child, when the
doctors had forbidden my wife to nurse it. I was particularly jealous, in
the first place, because my wife felt that restlessness peculiar to animal
matter when the regular course of life is interrupted without occasion.
But especially was I jealous because, having seen with what facility she
had thrown off her moral duties as a mother, I concluded rightly, though
unconsciously, that she would throw off as easily her conjugal duties,
feeling all the surer of this because she was in perfect health, as was
shown by the fact that, in spite of the prohibition of the dear doctors,
she nursed her following children, and even very well."
"I see that you have no love for the doctors," said I, having noticed
Posdnicheff's extraordinarily spiteful expression of face and tone of
voice whenever he spoke of them.
"It is not a question of loving them or of not loving them. They have
ruined my life, as they have ruined the lives of thousands of beings
before me, and I cannot help connecting the consequence with the cause. I
conceive that they desire, like the lawyers and the rest, to make money. I
would willingly have given them half of my income, and any one would
have done it in my place, understanding what they do, if they had
consented not to meddle in my conjugal life, and to keep themselves at a
distance. I have compiled no statistics, but I know scores of cases, in
reality, they are innumerable where they have killed, now a child in
its mother's womb, asserting positively that the mother could not give
birth to it (when the mother could give birth to it very well), now
mothers, under the pretext of a so-called operation. No one has counted
these murders, just as no one counted the murders of the Inquisition,
because it was supposed that they were committed for the benefit of
humanity. Innumerable are the crimes of the doctors! But all these crimes
are nothing compared with the materialistic demoralization which they
introduce into the world through women. I say nothing of the fact that, if
it were to follow their advice, thanks to the microbe which they see
everywhere, humanity, instead of tending to union, would proceed
straight to complete disunion. Everybody, according to their doctrine,
should isolate himself, and never remove from his mouth a syringe filled
with phenic acid (moreover, they have found out now that it does no good).
But I would pass over all these things. The supreme poison is the
perversion of people, especially of women. One can no longer say now: 'You
live badly, live better.' One can no longer say it either to himself or to
others, for, if you live badly (say the doctors), the cause is in the
nervous system or in something similar, and it is necessary to go to
consult them, and they will prescribe for you thirty-five copecks' worth
of remedies to be bought at the drug-store, and you must swallow them.
Your condition grows worse ? Again to the doctors, and more remedies ! An
excellent business !
"But to return to our subject. I was saying that my wife nursed her
children well, that the nursing and the gestation of the children, and the
children in general, quieted my tortures of jealousy, but that, on the
other hand, they provoked torments of a different sort."
CHAPTER XVI
"The children came rapidly, one after another, and there happened what
happens in our society with children and doctors. Yes, children, maternal
love, it is a painful thing. Children, to a woman of our society, are not
a joy, a pride, nor a fulfilment of her vocation, but a cause of fear,
anxiety, and interminable suffering, torture. Women say it, they think it,
and they feel it too. Children to them are really a torture, not because
they do not wish to give birth to them, nurse them, and care for them
(women with a strong maternal instinct and such was my wife are
ready to do that), but because the children may fall sick and die. They do
not wish to give birth to them, and then not love them; and when they
love, they do not wish to feel fear for the child's health and life. That
is why they do not wish to nurse them. 'If I nurse it,' they say, 'I shall
become too fond of it.' One would think that they preferred india-rubber
children, which could neither be sick nor die, and could always be
repaired. What an entanglement in the brains of these poor women ! Why such
abominations to avoid pregnancy, and to avoid the love of the little ones ?
"Love, the most joyous condition of the soul, is represented as a danger.
And why ? Because, when a man does not live as a man, he is worse than a
beast. A woman cannot look upon a child otherwise than as a pleasure. It
is true that it is painful to give birth to it, but what little hands! . .
. Oh, the little hands ! Oh, the little feet ! Oh, its smile ! Oh, its little
body ! Oh, its prattle ! Oh, its hiccough ! In a word, it is a feeling of
animal, sensual maternity. But as for any idea as to the mysterious
significance of the appearance of a new human being to replace us, there
is scarcely a sign of it.
"Nothing of it appears in all that is said and done. No one has any faith
now in a baptism of the child, and yet that was nothing but a reminder of
the human significance of the newborn babe.
"They have rejected all that, but they have not replaced it, and there
remain only the dresses, the laces, the little hands, the little feet, and
whatever exists in the animal. But the animal has neither imagination, nor
foresight, nor reason, nor a doctor.
"No ! not even a doctor ! The chicken droops its head, overwhelmed, or the
calf dies; the hen clucks and the cow lows for a time, and then these
beasts continue to live, forgetting what has happened.
"With us, if the child falls sick, what is to be done, how to care for it,
what doctor to call, where to go ? If it dies, there will be no more little
hands or little feet, and then what is the use of the sufferings endured ?
The cow does not ask all that, and this is why children are a source of
misery. The cow has no imagination, and for that reason cannot think how
it might have saved the child if it had done this or that, and its grief,
founded in its physical being, lasts but a very short time. It is only a
condition, and not that sorrow which becomes exaggerated to the point of
despair, thanks to idleness and satiety. The cow has not that reasoning
faculty which would enable it to ask the why. Why endure all these
tortures ? What was the use of so much love, if the little ones were to
die ? The cow has no logic which tells it to have no more children, and, if
any come accidentally, to neither love nor nurse them, that it may not
suffer. But our wives reason, and reason in this way, and that is why I
said that, when a man does not live as a man, he is beneath the animal."
"But then, how is it necessary to act, in your opinion, in order to treat
children humanly ?" I asked.
"How ? Why, love them humanly."
"Well, do not mothers love their children ?"
"They do not love them humanly, or very seldom do, and that is why they do
not love them even as dogs. Mark this, a hen, a goose, a wolf, will always
remain to woman inaccessible ideals of animal love. It is a rare thing for
a woman to throw herself, at the peril of her life, upon an elephant to
snatch her child away, whereas a hen or a sparrow will not fail to fly at
a dog and sacrifice itself utterly for its children. Observe this, also.
Woman has the power to limit her physical love for her children, which an
animal cannot do. Does that mean that, because of this, woman is inferior
to the animal ? No. She is superior (and even to say superior is unjust,
she is not superior, she is different), but she has other duties, human
duties. She can restrain herself in the matter of animal love, and
transfer her love to the soul of the child. That is what woman's role
should be, and that is precisely what we do not see in our society. We
read of the heroic acts of mothers who sacrifice their children in the
name of a superior idea, and these things seem to us like tales of the
ancient world, which do not concern us. And yet I believe that, if the
mother has not some ideal, in the name of which she can sacrifice the
animal feeling, and if this force finds no employment, she will transfer
it to chimerical attempts to physically preserve her child, aided in this
task by the doctor, and she will suffer as she does suffer.
"So it was with my wife. Whether there was one child or five, the feeling
remained the same. In fact, it was a little better when there had been
five. Life was always poisoned with fear for the children, not only from
their real or imaginary diseases, but even by their simple presence. For
my part, at least, throughout my conjugal life, all my interests and all
my happiness depended upon the health of my children, their condition,
their studies. Children, it is needless to say, are a serious
consideration; but all ought to live, and in our days parents can no
longer live. Regular life does not exist for them. The whole life of the
family hangs by a hair. What a terrible thing it is to suddenly receive
the news that little Basile is vomiting, or that Lise has a cramp in the
stomach ! Immediately you abandon everything, you forget everything,
everything becomes nothing. The essential thing is the doctor, the enema,
the temperature. You cannot begin a conversation but little Pierre comes
running in with an anxious air to ask if he may eat an apple, or what
jacket he shall put on, or else it is the servant who enters with a
screaming baby.
"Regular, steady family life does not exist. Where you live, and
consequently what you do, depends upon the health of the little ones, the
health of the little ones depends upon nobody, and, thanks to the doctors,
who pretend to aid health, your entire life is disturbed. It is a
perpetual peril. Scarcely do we believe ourselves out of it when a new
danger comes: more attempts to save. Always the situation of sailors on a
foundering vessel. Sometimes it seemed to me that this was done on
purpose, that my wife feigned anxiety in order to conquer me, since that
solved the question so simply for her benefit. It seemed to me that all
that she did at those times was done for its effect upon me, but now I see
that she herself, my wife, suffered and was tortured on account of the
little ones, their health, and their diseases.
"A torture to both of us, but to her the children were also a means of
forgetting herself, like an intoxication. I often noticed, when she was
very sad, that she was relieved, when a child fell sick, at being able to
take refuge in this intoxication. It was involuntary intoxication, because
as yet there was nothing else. On every side we heard that Mrs. So-and-so
had lost children, that Dr. So-and-so had saved the child of Mrs.
So-and-so, and that in a certain family all had moved from the house in
which they were living, and thereby saved the little ones. And the
doctors, with a serious air, confirmed this, sustaining my wife in her
opinions. She was not prone to fear, but the doctor dropped some word,
like corruption of the blood, scarlatina, or else, heaven help us, diphtheria,
and off she went.
"It was impossible for it to be otherwise. Women in the old days had the
belief that 'God has given, God has taken away,' that the soul of the
little angel is going to heaven, and that it is better to die innocent
than to die in sin. If the women of today had something like this faith,
they could endure more peacefully the sickness of their children. But of
all that there does not remain even a trace. And yet it is necessary to
believe in something; consequently they stupidly believe in medicine, and
not even in medicine, but in the doctor. One believes in X, another in Z,
and, like all believers, they do not see the idiocy of their beliefs. They
believe quia absurdum, because, in reality, if they did not believe in a
stupid way, they would see the vanity of all that these brigands prescribe
for them. Scarlatina is a contagious disease; so, when one lives in a
large city, half the family has to move away from its residence (we did it
twice), and yet every man in the city is a centre through which pass
innumerable diameters, carrying threads of all sorts of contagions. There
is no obstacle: the baker, the tailor, the coachman, the laundresses.
"And I would undertake, for every man who moves on account of contagion,
to find in his new dwelling-place another contagion similar, if not the
same.
"But that is not all. Every one knows rich people who, after a case of
diphtheria, destroy everything in their residences, and then fall sick in
houses newly built and furnished. Every one knows, likewise, numbers of
men who come in contact with sick people and do not get infected. Our
anxieties are due to the people who circulate tall stories. One woman says
that she has an excellent doctor. 'Pardon me,' answers the other, 'he
killed such a one,' or such a one. And vice versa. Bring her another, who
knows no more, who learned from the same books, who treats according to
the same formulas, but who goes about in a carriage, and asks a hundred
roubles a visit, and she will have faith in him.
"It all lies in the fact that our women are savages. They have no belief
in God, but some of them believe in the evil eye, and the others in
doctors who charge high fees. If they had faith they would know that
scarlatina, diphtheria, etc., are not so terrible, since they cannot
disturb that which man can and should love, the soul. There can
result from them only that which none of us can avoid, disease and
death. Without faith in God, they love only physically, and all their
energy is concentrated upon the preservation of life, which cannot be
preserved, and which the doctors promise the fools of both sexes to save.
And from that time there is nothing to be done; the doctors must be
summoned.
"Thus the presence of the children not only did not improve our relations
as husband and wife, but, on the contrary, disunited us. The children
became an additional cause of dispute, and the larger they grew, the more
they became an instrument of struggle.
"One would have said that we used them as weapons with which to combat
each other. Each of us had his favorite. I made use of little Basile (the
eldest), she of Lise. Further, when the children reached an age where
their characters began to be defined, they became allies, which we drew
each in his or her own direction. They suffered horribly from this, the
poor things, but we, in our perpetual hubbub, were not clear-headed enough
to think of them. The little girl was devoted to me, but the eldest boy,
who resembled my wife, his favorite, often inspired me with dislike."
CHAPTER XVII
"We lived at first in the country, then in the city, and, if the final misfortune had not happened, I should have lived thus until my old age and should then have believed that I had had a good life, not too good, but, on the other hand, not bad, an existence such as other people lead. I should not have understood the abyss of misfortune and ignoble falsehood in which I floundered about, feeling that something was not right. I felt, in the first place, that I, a man, who, according to my ideas, ought to be the master, wore the petticoats, and that I could not get rid of them. The principal cause of my subjection was the children. I should have liked to free myself, but I could not. Bringing up the children, and resting upon them, my wife ruled. I did not then realize that she could not help ruling, especially because, in marrying, she was morally superior to me, as every young girl is incomparably superior to the man, since she is incomparably purer. Strange thing ! The ordinary wife in our society is a very commonplace person or worse, selfish, gossiping, whimsical, whereas the ordinary young girl, until the age of twenty, is a charming being, ready for everything that is beautiful and lofty. Why is this so ? Evidently because husbands pervert them, and lower them to their own level.
"In truth, if boys and girls are born equal, the little girls find
themselves in a better situation. In the first place, the young girl is
not subjected to the perverting conditions to which we are subjected. She
has neither cigarettes, nor wine, nor cards, nor comrades, nor public
houses, nor public functions. And then the chief thing is that she is
physically pure, and that is why, in marrying, she is superior to her
husband. She is superior to man as a young girl, and when she becomes a
wife in our society, where there is no need to work in order to live, she
becomes superior, also, by the gravity of the acts of generation, birth,
and nursing.
"Woman, in bringing a child into the world, and giving it her bosom, sees
clearly that her affair is more serious than the affair of man, who sits
in the Zemstvo, in the court. She knows that in these functions the main
thing is money, and money can be made in different ways, and for that very
reason money is not inevitably necessary, like nursing a child.
Consequently woman is necessarily superior to man, and must rule. But man,
in our society, not only does not recognize this, but, on the contrary,
always looks upon her from the height of his grandeur, despising what she
does.
"Thus my wife despised me for my work at the Zemstvo, because she gave
birth to children and nursed them. I, in turn, thought that woman's labor
was most contemptible, which one might and should laugh at.
"Apart from the other motives, we were also separated by a mutual
contempt. Our relations grew ever more hostile, and we arrived at that
period when, not only did dissent provoke hostility, but hostility
provoked dissent. Whatever she might say, I was sure in advance to hold a
contrary opinion; and she the same. Toward the fourth year of our marriage
it was tacitly decided between us that no intellectual community was
possible, and we made no further attempts at it. As to the simplest
objects, we each held obstinately to our own opinions. With strangers we
talked upon the most varied and most intimate matters, but not with each
other. Sometimes, in listening to my wife talk with others in my presence,
I said to myself: 'What a woman! Everything that she says is a lie!' And I
was astonished that the person with whom she was conversing did not see
that she was lying. When we were together; we were condemned to silence,
or to conversations which, I am sure, might have been carried on by
animals.
"'What time is it ? It is bed-time. What is there for dinner today ? Where
shall we go ? What is there in the newspaper ? The doctor must be sent for,
Lise has a sore throat.'
"Unless we kept within the extremely narrow limits of such conversation,
irritation was sure to ensue. The presence of a third person relieved us,
for through an intermediary we could still communicate. She probably
believed that she was always right. As for me, in my own eyes, I was a
saint beside her.
"The periods of what we call love arrived as often as formerly. They were
more brutal, without refinement, without ornament; but they were short,
and generally followed by periods of irritation without cause, irritation
fed by the most trivial pretexts. We had spats about the coffee, the
table-cloth, the carriage, games of cards, trifles, in short, which
could not be of the least importance to either of us. As for me, a
terrible execration was continually boiling up within me. I watched her
pour the tea, swing her foot, lift her spoon to her mouth, and blow upon
hot liquids or sip them, and I detested her as if these had been so many
crimes.
"I did not notice that these periods of irritation depended very regularly
upon the periods of love. Each of the latter was followed by one of the
former. A period of intense love was followed by a long period of anger; a
period of mild love induced a mild irritation. We did not understand that
this love and this hatred were two opposite faces of the same animal
feeling. To live thus would be terrible, if one understood the philosophy
of it. But we did not perceive this, we did not analyze it. It is at once
the torture and the relief of man that, when he lives irregularly, he can
cherish illusions as to the miseries of his situation. So did we. She
tried to forget herself in sudden and absorbing occupations, in household
duties, the care of the furniture, her dress and that of her children, in
the education of the latter, and in looking after their health. These were
occupations that did not arise from any immediate necessity, but she
accomplished them as if her life and that of her children depended on
whether the pastry was allowed to burn, whether a curtain was hanging
properly, whether a dress was a success, whether a lesson was well
learned, or whether a medicine was swallowed.
"I saw clearly that to her all this was, more than anything else, a means
of forgetting, an intoxication, just as hunting, card-playing, and my
functions at the Zemstvo served the same purpose for me. It is true that
in addition I had an intoxication literally speaking, tobacco, which
I smoked in large quantities, and wine, upon which I did not get drunk,
but of which I took too much. Vodka before meals, and during meals two
glasses of wine, so that a perpetual mist concealed the turmoil of
existence.
"These new theories of hypnotism, of mental maladies, of hysteria are not
simple stupidities, but dangerous or evil stupidities. Charcot, I am sure,
would have said that my wife was hysterical, and of me he would have said
that I was an abnormal being, and he would have wanted to treat me. But in
us there was nothing requiring treatment. All this mental malady was the
simple result of the fact that we were living immorally. Thanks to this
immoral life, we suffered, and, to stifle our sufferings, we tried
abnormal means, which the doctors call the 'symptoms' of a mental malady, hysteria.
"There was no occasion in all this to apply for treatment to Charcot or to
anybody else. Neither suggestion nor bromide would have been effective in
working our cure. The needful thing was an examination of the origin of
the evil. It is as when one is sitting on a nail; if you see the nail, you
see that which is irregular in your life, and you avoid it. Then the pain
stops, without any necessity of stifling it. Our pain arose from the
irregularity of our life, and also my jealousy, my irritability, and the
necessity of keeping myself in a state of perpetual semi-intoxication by
hunting, card-playing, and, above all, the use of wine and tobacco. It was
because of this irregularity that my wife so passionately pursued her
occupations. The sudden changes of her disposition, from extreme sadness
to extreme gayety, and her babble, arose from the need of forgetting
herself, of forgetting her life, in the continual intoxication of varied
and very brief occupations.
"Thus we lived in a perpetual fog, in which we did not distinguish our
condition. We were like two galley-slaves fastened to the same ball,
cursing each other, poisoning each other's existence, and trying to shake
each other off. I was still unaware that ninety-nine families out of every
hundred live in the same hell, and that it cannot be otherwise. I had not
learned this fact from others or from myself. The coincidences that are
met in regular, and even in irregular life, are surprising. At the very
period when the life of parents becomes impossible, it becomes
indispensable that they go to the city to live, in order to educate their
children. That is what we did."
Posdnicheff became silent, and twice there escaped him, in the
half-darkness, sighs, which at that moment seemed to me like suppressed
sobs. Then he continued.
CHAPTER XVIII
"So we lived in the city. In the city the wretched feel less sad. One can
live there a hundred years without being noticed, and be dead a long time
before anybody will notice it. People have no time to inquire into your
life. All are absorbed. Business, social relations, art, the health of
children, their education. And there are visits that must be received and
made; it is necessary to see this one, it is necessary to hear that one or
the other one. In the city there are always one, two, or three celebrities
that it is indispensable that one should visit.
"Now one must care for himself, or care for such or such a little one, now
it is the professor, the private tutor, the governesses, . . . and life is
absolutely empty. In this activity we were less conscious of the
sufferings of our cohabitation. Moreover, in the first of it, we had a
superb occupation, the arrangement of the new dwelling, and then,
too, the moving from the city to the country, and from the country to the
city.
"Thus we spent a winter. The following winter an incident happened to us
which passed unnoticed, but which was the fundamental cause of all that
happened later. My wife was suffering, and the rascals (the doctors) would
not permit her to conceive a child, and taught her how to avoid it. I was
profoundly disgusted. I struggled vainly against it, but she insisted
frivolously and obstinately, and I surrendered. The last justification of
our life as wretches was thereby suppressed, and life became baser than
ever.
"The peasant and the workingman need children, and hence their conjugal
relations have a justification. But we, when we have a few children, have
no need of any more. They make a superfluous confusion of expenses and
joint heirs, and are an embarrassment. Consequently we have no excuses for
our existence as wretches, but we are so deeply degraded that we do not
see the necessity of a justification. The majority of people in
contemporary society give themselves up to this debauchery without the
slightest remorse. We have no conscience left, except, so to speak, the
conscience of public opinion and of the criminal code. But in this matter
neither of these consciences is struck. There is not a being in society
who blushes at it. Each one practices it, X, Y, Z, etc. What is the
use of multiplying beggars, and depriving ourselves of the joys of social
life ? There is no necessity of having conscience before the criminal code,
or of fearing it: low girls, soldiers' wives who throw their children into
ponds or wells, these certainly must be put in prison. But with us the
suppression is effected opportunely and properly.
"Thus we passed two years more. The method prescribed by the rascals had
evidently succeeded. My wife had grown stouter and handsomer. It was the
beauty of the end of summer. She felt it, and paid much attention to her
person. She had acquired that provoking beauty that stirs men. She was in
all the brilliancy of the wife of thirty years, who conceives no children,
eats heartily, and is excited. The very sight of her was enough to
frighten one. She was like a spirited carriage-horse that has long been
idle, and suddenly finds itself without a bridle. As for my wife, she had
no bridle, as for that matter, ninety-nine hundredths of our women have
none."
CHAPTER XIX
Posdnicheff's face had become transformed; his eyes were pitiable; their expression seemed strange, like that of another being than himself; his moustache and beard turned up toward the top of his face; his nose was diminished, and his mouth enlarged, immense, frightful.
"Yes," he resumed "she had grown stouter since ceasing to conceive, and
her anxieties about her children began to disappear. Not even to
disappear. One would have said that she was waking from a long
intoxication, that on coming to herself she had perceived the entire
universe with its joys, a whole world in which she had not learned to
live, and which she did not understand.
"'If only this world shall not vanish ! When time is past, when old age
comes, one cannot recover it.' Thus, I believe, she thought, or rather
felt. Moreover, she could neither think nor feel otherwise. She had been
brought up in this idea that there is in the world but one thing worthy of
attention, love. In marrying, she had known something of this love,
but very far from everything that she had understood as promised her,
everything that she expected. How many disillusions ! How much suffering !
And an unexpected torture, the children ! This torture had told upon
her, and then, thanks to the obliging doctor, she had learned that it is
possible to avoid having children. That had made her glad. She had tried,
and she was now revived for the only thing that she knew, for love.
But love with a husband polluted by jealousy and ill-nature was no longer
her ideal. She began to think of some other tenderness; at least, that is
what I thought. She looked about her as if expecting some event or some
being. I noticed it, and I could not help being anxious.
"Always, now, it happened that, in talking with me through a third party
(that is, in talking with others, but with the intention that I should
hear), she boldly expressed, not thinking that an hour before she
had said the opposite, half joking, half seriously, this idea that
maternal anxieties are a delusion; that it is not worth while to sacrifice
one's life to children. When one is young, it is necessary to enjoy life.
So she occupied herself less with the children, not with the same
intensity as formerly, and paid more and more attention to herself, to her
face, although she concealed it, to her pleasures, and even to
her perfection from the worldly point of view. She began to devote herself
passionately to the piano, which had formerly stood forgotten in the
corner. There, at the piano, began the adventure.
"The MAN appeared."
Posdnicheff seemed embarrassed, and twice again there escaped him that
nasal sound of which I spoke above. I thought that it gave him pain to
refer to the MAN, and to remember him. He made an effort, as if to break
down the obstacle that embarrassed him, and continued with determination.
"He was a bad man in my eyes, and not because he has played such an
important role in my life, but because he was really such. For the rest,
from the fact that he was bad, we must conclude that he was irresponsible.
He was a musician, a violinist. Not a professional musician, but half man
of the world, half artist. His father, a country proprietor, was a
neighbor of my father's. The father had become ruined, and the children,
three boys, were all sent away. Our man, the youngest, was sent to his
godmother at Paris. There they placed him in the Conservatory, for he
showed a taste for music. He came out a violinist, and played in
concerts."
On the point of speaking evil of the other, Posdnicheff checked himself,
stopped, and said suddenly:
"In truth, I know not how he lived. I only know that that year he came to
Russia, and came to see me. Moist eyes of almond shape, smiling red lips,
a little moustache well waxed, hair brushed in the latest fashion, a
vulgarly pretty face, what the women call 'not bad,' feebly
built physically, but with no deformity; with hips as broad as a woman's;
correct, and insinuating himself into the familiarity of people as far as
possible, but having that keen sense that quickly detects a false step and
retires in reason, a man, in short, observant of the external rules
of dignity, with that special Parisianism that is revealed in buttoned
boots, a gaudy cravat, and that something which foreigners pick up in
Paris, and which, in its peculiarity and novelty, always has an influence
on our women. In his manners an external and artificial gayety, a way, you
know, of referring to everything by hints, by unfinished fragments, as if
everything that one says you knew already, recalled it, and could supply
the omissions. Well, he, with his music, was the cause of all.
"At the trial the affair was so represented that everything seemed
attributable to jealousy. It is false, that is, not quite false, but
there was something else. The verdict was rendered that I was a deceived
husband, that I had killed in defence of my sullied honor (that is the way
they put it in their language), and thus I was acquitted. I tried to
explain the affair from my own point of view, but they concluded that I
simply wanted to rehabilitate the memory of my wife. Her relations with
the musician, whatever they may have been, are now of no importance to me
or to her. The important part is what I have told you. The whole tragedy
was due to the fact that this man came into our house at a time when an
immense abyss had already been dug between us, that frightful tension of
mutual hatred, in which the slightest motive sufficed to precipitate the
crisis. Our quarrels in the last days were something terrible, and the
more astonishing because they were followed by a brutal passion extremely
strained. If it had not been he, some other would have come. If the
pretext had not been jealousy, I should have discovered another. I insist
upon this point, that all husbands who live the married life that I
lived must either resort to outside debauchery, or separate from their
wives, or kill themselves, or kill their wives as I did. If there is any
one in my case to whom this does not happen, he is a very rare exception,
for, before ending as I ended, I was several times on the point of
suicide, and my wife made several attempts to poison herself."
CHAPTER XX
"In order that you may understand me, I must tell you how this happened.
We were living along, and all seemed well. Suddenly we began to talk of
the children's education. I do not remember what words either of us
uttered, but a discussion began, reproaches, leaps from one subject to
another. 'Yes, I know it. It has been so for a long time.' . . . 'You said
that.' . . . 'No, I did not say that.' . . . 'Then I lie ?' etc.
"And I felt that the frightful crisis was approaching when I should desire
to kill her or else myself. I knew that it was approaching; I was afraid
of it as of fire; I wanted to restrain myself. But rage took possession of
my whole being. My wife found herself in the same condition, perhaps
worse. She knew that she intentionally distorted each of my words, and
each of her words was saturated with venom. All that was dear to me she
disparaged and profaned. The farther the quarrel went, the more furious it
became. I cried, 'Be silent,' or something like that.
"She bounded out of the room and ran toward the children. I tried to hold
her back to finish my insults. I grasped her by the arm, and hurt her. She
cried: 'Children, your father is beating me.' I cried: 'Don't lie.' She
continued to utter falsehoods for the simple purpose of irritating me
further. 'Ah, it is not the first time,' or something of that sort. The
children rushed toward her and tried to quiet her. I said: 'Don't sham.'
She said: 'You look upon everything as a sham. You would kill a person and
say he was shamming. Now I understand you. That is what you want to do.'
'Oh, if you were only dead !' I cried.
"I remember how that terrible phrase frightened me. Never had I thought
that I could utter words so brutal, so frightful, and I was stupefied at
what had just escaped my lips. I fled into my private apartment. I sat
down and began to smoke. I heard her go into the hall and prepare to go
out. I asked her:
'Where are you going ? She did not answer. 'Well, may the devil take you !' said I to myself, going back into my private room, where I lay down again and began smoking afresh. Thousands of plans of vengeance, of ways of getting rid of her, and how to arrange this, and act as if nothing had happened, all this passed through my head. I thought of these things, and I smoked, and smoked, and smoked. I thought of running away, of making my escape, of going to America. I went so far as to dream how beautiful it would be, after getting rid of her, to love another woman, entirely different from her. I should be rid of her if she should die or if I should get a divorce, and I tried to think how that could be managed. I saw that I was getting confused, but, in order not to see that I was not thinking rightly, I kept on smoking.
'Where are you going ? She did not answer. 'Well, may the devil take you !' said I to myself, going back into my private room, where I lay down again and began smoking afresh. Thousands of plans of vengeance, of ways of getting rid of her, and how to arrange this, and act as if nothing had happened, all this passed through my head. I thought of these things, and I smoked, and smoked, and smoked. I thought of running away, of making my escape, of going to America. I went so far as to dream how beautiful it would be, after getting rid of her, to love another woman, entirely different from her. I should be rid of her if she should die or if I should get a divorce, and I tried to think how that could be managed. I saw that I was getting confused, but, in order not to see that I was not thinking rightly, I kept on smoking.
"And the life of the house went on as usual. The children's teacher came
and asked: 'Where is Madame ? When will she return ?'
"The servants asked if they should serve the tea. I entered the
dining-room. The children, Lise, the eldest girl, looked at me with
fright, as if to question me, and she did not come. The whole evening
passed, and still she did not come. Two sentiments kept succeeding each
other in my soul, hatred of her, since she tortured myself and the
children by her absence, but would finally return just the same, and fear
lest she might return and make some attempt upon herself. But where should
I look for her ? At her sister's ? It seemed so stupid to go to ask where
one's wife is. Moreover, may God forbid, I hoped, that she should be at
her sister's! If she wishes to torment any one, let her torment herself
first. And suppose she were not at her sister's.
"Suppose she were to do, or had already done, something.
"Eleven o'clock, midnight, one o'clock. . . . I did not sleep. I did not
go to my chamber. It is stupid to lie stretched out all alone, and to
wait. But in my study I did not rest. I tried to busy myself, to write
letters, to read. Impossible ! I was alone, tortured, wicked, and I
listened. Toward daylight I went to sleep. I awoke. She had not returned.
Everything in the house went on as usual, and all looked at me in
astonishment, questioningly. The children's eyes were full of reproach for
me.
"And always the same feeling of anxiety about her, and of hatred because
of this anxiety.
"Toward eleven o'clock in the morning came her sister, her ambassadress.
Then began the usual phrases: 'She is in a terrible state. What is the
matter?'
'Why, nothing has happened.' I spoke of her asperity of character, and I added that I had done nothing, and that I would not take the first step. If she wants a divorce, so much the better ! My sister-in-law would not listen to this idea, and went away without having gained anything. I was obstinate, and I said boldly and determinedly, in talking to her, that I would not take the first step. Immediately she had gone I went into the other room, and saw the children in a frightened and pitiful state, and there I found myself already inclined to take this first step. But I was bound by my word. Again I walked up and down, always smoking. At breakfast I drank brandy and wine, and I reached the point which I unconsciously desired, the point where I no longer saw the stupidity and baseness of my situation.
'Why, nothing has happened.' I spoke of her asperity of character, and I added that I had done nothing, and that I would not take the first step. If she wants a divorce, so much the better ! My sister-in-law would not listen to this idea, and went away without having gained anything. I was obstinate, and I said boldly and determinedly, in talking to her, that I would not take the first step. Immediately she had gone I went into the other room, and saw the children in a frightened and pitiful state, and there I found myself already inclined to take this first step. But I was bound by my word. Again I walked up and down, always smoking. At breakfast I drank brandy and wine, and I reached the point which I unconsciously desired, the point where I no longer saw the stupidity and baseness of my situation.
"Toward three o'clock she came. I thought that she was appeased, or
admitted her defeat. I began to tell her that I was provoked by her
reproaches. She answered me, with the same severe and terribly downcast
face, that she had not come for explanations, but to take the children,
that we could not live together. I answered that it was not my fault, that
she had put me beside myself. She looked at me with a severe and solemn
air, and said: 'Say no more. You will repent it.' I said that I could not
tolerate comedies. Then she cried out something that I did not understand,
and rushed toward her room. The key turned in the lock, and she shut
herself up. I pushed at the door. There was no response. Furious, I went
away.
"A half hour later Lise came running all in tears. 'What! Has anything
happened? We cannot hear Mamma!' We went toward my wife's room. I pushed
the door with all my might. The bolt was scarcely drawn, and the door
opened. In a skirt, with high boots, my wife lay awkwardly on the bed. On
the table an empty opium phial. We restored her to life. Tears and then
reconciliation! Not reconciliation; internally each kept the hatred for
the other, but it was absolutely necessary for the moment to end the scene
in some way, and life began again as before. These scenes, and even worse,
came now once a week, now every month, now every day. And invariably the
same incidents. Once I was absolutely resolved to fly, but through some
inconceivable weakness I remained.
"Such were the circumstances in which we were living when the MAN came.
The man was bad, it is true. But what ! No worse than we were."
CHAPTER XXI
"When we moved to Moscow, this gentleman,his name was
Troukhatchevsky, came to my house. It was in the morning. I received
him. In former times we had been very familiar. He tried, by various
advances, to re-establish the familiarity, but I was determined to keep
him at a distance, and soon he gave it up. He displeased me extremely. At
the first glance I saw that he was a filthy debauche. I was jealous of
him, even before he had seen my wife. But, strange thing ! some occult
fatal power kept me from repulsing him and sending him away, and, on the
contrary, induced me to suffer this approach. What could have been simpler
than to talk with him a few minutes, and then dismiss him coldly without
introducing him to my wife ? But no, as if on purpose, I turned the
conversation upon his skill as a violinist, and he answered that, contrary
to what I had heard, he now played the violin more than formerly. He
remembered that I used to play. I answered that I had abandoned music, but
that my wife played very well.
"Singular thing ! Why, in the important events of our life, in those in
which a man's fate is decided, as mine was decided in that moment, why
in these events is there neither a past nor a future ? My relations with
Troukhatchevsky the first day, at the first hour, were such as they might
still have been after all that has happened. I was conscious that some
frightful misfortune must result from the presence of this man, and, in
spite of that, I could not help being amiable to him. I introduced him to
my wife. She was pleased with him. In the beginning, I suppose, because of
the pleasure of the violin playing, which she adored. She had even hired
for that purpose a violinist from the theatre. But when she cast a glance
at me, she understood my feelings, and concealed her impression. Then
began the mutual trickery and deceit. I smiled agreeably, pretending that
all this pleased me extremely. He, looking at my wife, as all debauches
look at beautiful women, with an air of being interested solely in the
subject of conversation, that is, in that which did not interest him
at all.
"She tried to seem indifferent. But my expression, my jealous or false
smile, which she knew so well, and the voluptuous glances of the musician,
evidently excited her. I saw that, after the first interview, her eyes
were already glittering, glittering strangely, and that, thanks to my
jealousy, between him and her had been immediately established that sort
of electric current which is provoked by an identity of expression in the
smile and in the eyes.
"We talked, at the first interview, of music, of Paris, and of all sorts
of trivialities. He rose to go. Pressing his hat against his swaying hip,
he stood erect, looking now at her and now at me, as if waiting to see
what she would do. I remember that minute, precisely because it was in my
power not to invite him. I need not have invited him, and then nothing
would have happened. But I cast a glance first at him, then at her. 'Don't
flatter yourself that I can be jealous of you,' I thought, addressing
myself to her mentally, and I invited the other to bring his violin that
very evening, and to play with my wife. She raised her eyes toward me with
astonishment, and her face turned purple, as if she were seized with a
sudden fear. She began to excuse herself, saying that she did not play
well enough. This refusal only excited me the more. I remember the strange
feeling with which I looked at his neck, his white neck, in contrast with
his black hair, separated by a parting, when, with his skipping gait, like
that of a bird, he left my house. I could not help confessing to myself
that this man's presence caused me suffering. 'It is in my power,' thought
I, 'to so arrange things that I shall never see him again. But can it be
that I, I, fear him ? No, I do not fear him. It would be too
humiliating!'
"And there in the hall, knowing that my wife heard me, I insisted that he
should come that very evening with his violin. He promised me, and went
away. In the evening he arrived with his violin, and they played together.
But for a long time things did not go well; we had not the necessary
music, and that which we had my wife could not play at sight. I amused
myself with their difficulties. I aided them, I made proposals, and they
finally executed a few pieces, songs without words, and a little
sonata by Mozart. He played in a marvellous manner. He had what is called
the energetic and tender tone. As for difficulties, there were none for
him. Scarcely had he begun to play, when his face changed. He became
serious, and much more sympathetic. He was, it is needless to say, much
stronger than my wife. He helped her, he advised her simply and naturally,
and at the same time played his game with courtesy. My wife seemed
interested only in the music. She was very simple and agreeable.
Throughout the evening I feigned, not only for the others, but for myself,
an interest solely in the music. Really, I was continually tortured by
jealousy. From the first minute that the musician's eyes met those of my
wife, I saw that he did not regard her as a disagreeable woman, with whom
on occasion it would be unpleasant to enter into intimate relations.
"If I had been pure, I should not have dreamed of what he might think of
her. But I looked at women, and that is why I understood him and was in
torture. I was in torture, especially because I was sure that toward me
she had no other feeling than of perpetual irritation, sometimes
interrupted by the customary sensuality, and that this man, thanks
to his external elegance and his novelty, and, above all, thanks to his
unquestionably remarkable talent, thanks to the attraction exercised under
the influence of music, thanks to the impression that music produces upon
nervous natures, this man would not only please, but would
inevitably, and without difficulty, subjugate and conquer her, and do with
her as he liked.
"I could not help seeing this. I could not help suffering, or keep from
being jealous. And I was jealous, and I suffered, and in spite of that,
and perhaps even because of that, an unknown force, in spite of my will,
impelled me to be not only polite, but more than polite, amiable. I cannot
say whether I did it for my wife, or to show him that I did not fear him,
or to deceive myself; but from my first relations with him I could not be
at my ease. I was obliged, that I might not give way to a desire to kill
him immediately, to 'caress' him. I filled his glass at the table, I grew
enthusiastic over his playing, I talked to him with an extremely amiable
smile, and I invited him to dinner the following Sunday, and to play
again. I told him that I would invite some of my acquaintances, lovers of
his art, to hear him.
"Two or three days later I was entering my house, in conversation with a
friend, when in the hall I suddenly felt something as heavy as a stone
weighing on my heart, and I could not account for it. And it was this, it
was this: in passing through the hall, I had noticed something which
reminded me of HIM. Not until I reached my study did I realize what it
was, and I returned to the hall to verify my conjecture. Yes, I was not
mistaken. It was his overcoat (everything that belonged to him, I, without
realizing it, had observed with extraordinary attention). I questioned the
servant. That was it. He had come.
"I passed near the parlor, through my children's study-room. Lise, my
daughter, was sitting before a book, and the old nurse, with my youngest
child, was beside the table, turning the cover of something or other. In
the parlor I heard a slow arpeggio, and his voice, deadened, and a denial
from her. She said: 'No, no ! There is something else !' And it seemed to me
that some one was purposely deadening the words by the aid of the piano.
"My God ! How my heart leaped ! What were my imaginations ! When I remember
the beast that lived in me at that moment, I am seized with fright. My
heart was first compressed, then stopped, and then began to beat like a
hammer. The principal feeling, as in every bad feeling, was pity for
myself. 'Before the children, before the old nurse,' thought I, 'she
dishonors me. I will go away. I can endure it no longer. God knows what I
should do if. . . . But I must go in.'
"The old nurse raised her eyes to mine, as if she understood, and advised
me to keep a sharp watch. 'I must go in,' I said to myself, and, without
knowing what I did, I opened the door. He was sitting at the piano and
making arpeggios with his long, white, curved fingers. She was standing in
the angle of the grand piano, before the open score. She saw or heard me
first, and raised her eyes to mine. Was she stunned, was she pretending
not to be frightened, or was she really not frightened at all ? In any
case, she did not tremble, she did not stir. She blushed, but only a
little later.
"'How glad I am that you have come ! We have not decided what we will play
Sunday,' said she, in a tone that she would not have had if she had been
alone with me.
"This tone, and the way in which she said 'we' in speaking of herself and
of him, revolted me. I saluted him silently. He shook hands with me
directly, with a smile that seemed to me full of mockery. He explained to
me that he had brought some scores, in order to prepare for the Sunday
concert, and that they were not in accord as to the piece to choose, whether
difficult, classic things, notably a sonata by Beethoven, or lighter
pieces.
"And as he spoke, he looked at me. It was all so natural, so simple, that
there was absolutely nothing to be said against it. And at the same time I
saw, I was sure, that it was false, that they were in a conspiracy to
deceive me.
"One of the most torturing situations for the jealous (and in our social
life everybody is jealous) are those social conditions which allow a very
great and dangerous intimacy between a man and a woman under certain
pretexts. One must make himself the laughing stock of everybody, if he
desires to prevent associations in the ball-room, the intimacy of doctors
with their patients, the familiarity of art occupations, and especially of
music. In order that people may occupy themselves together with the
noblest art, music, a certain intimacy is necessary, in which there is
nothing blameworthy. Only a jealous fool of a husband can have anything to
say against it. A husband should not have such thoughts, and especially
should not thrust his nose into these affairs, or prevent them. And yet,
everybody knows that precisely in these occupations, especially in music,
many adulteries originate in our society.
"I had evidently embarrassed them, because for some time I was unable to
say anything. I was like a bottle suddenly turned upside down, from which
the water does not run because it is too full. I wanted to insult the man,
and to drive him away, but I could do nothing of the kind. On the
contrary, I felt that I was disturbing them, and that it was my fault. I
made a presence of approving everything, this time also, thanks to that
strange feeling that forced me to treat him the more amiably in proportion
as his presence was more painful to me. I said that I trusted to his
taste, and I advised my wife to do the same. He remained just as long as
it was necessary in order to efface the unpleasant impression of my abrupt
entrance with a frightened face. He went away with an air of satisfaction
at the conclusions arrived at. As for me, I was perfectly sure that, in
comparison with that which preoccupied them, the question of music was
indifferent to them. I accompanied him with especial courtesy to the hall
(how can one help accompanying a man who has come to disturb your
tranquillity and ruin the happiness of the entire family?), and I shook
his white, soft hand with fervent amiability."
CHAPTER XXII
"All that day I did not speak to my wife. I could not. Her proximity excited such hatred that I feared myself. At the table she asked me, in presence of the children, when I was to start upon a journey. I was to go the following week to an assembly of the Zemstvo, in a neighboring locality. I named the date. She asked me if I would need anything for the journey. I did not answer. I sat silent at the table, and silently I retired to my study. In those last days she never entered my study, especially at that hour. Suddenly I heard her steps, her walk, and then a terribly base idea entered my head that, like the wife of Uri, she wished to conceal a fault already committed, and that it was for this reason that she came to see me at this unseasonable hour. 'Is it possible,' thought I, 'that she is coming to see me?' On hearing her step as it approached: 'If it is to see me that she is coming, then I am right.'
"An inexpressible hatred invaded my soul. The steps drew nearer, and
nearer, and nearer yet. Would she pass by and go on to the other room ? No,
the hinges creaked, and at the door her tall, graceful, languid figure
appeared. In her face, in her eyes, a timidity, an insinuating expression,
which she tried to hide, but which I saw, and of which I understood the
meaning. I came near suffocating, such were my efforts to hold my breath,
and, continuing to look at her, I took my cigarette, and lighted it.
"'What does this mean ? One comes to talk with you, and you go to smoking.'
"And she sat down beside me on the sofa, resting against my shoulder. I
recoiled, that I might not touch her.
"'I see that you are displeased with what I wish to play on Sunday,' said
she.
"'I am not at all displeased,' said I.
"'Can I not see ?'
"'Well, I congratulate you on your clairvoyance. Only to you every
baseness is agreeable, and I abhor it.'
"'If you are going to swear like a trooper, I am going away.'
"'Then go away. Only know that, if the honor of the family is nothing to
you, to me it is dear. As for you, the devil take you !'
"'What! What is the matter ?'
"'Go away, in the name of God.'
"But she did not go away. Was she pretending not to understand, or did she
really not understand what I meant ? But she was offended and became angry.
"'You have become absolutely impossible,' she began, or some such phrase
as that regarding my character, trying, as usual, to give me as much pain
as possible. 'After what you have done to my sister (she referred to an
incident with her sister, in which, beside myself, I had uttered
brutalities; she knew that that tortured me, and tried to touch me in that
tender spot) nothing will astonish me.'
"'Yes, offended, humiliated, and dishonored, and after that to hold me
still responsible,' thought I, and suddenly a rage, such a hatred invaded
me as I do not remember to have ever felt before. For the first time I
desired to express this hatred physically. I leaped upon her, but at the
same moment I understood my condition, and I asked myself whether it would
be well for me to abandon myself to my fury. And I answered myself that it
would be well, that it would frighten her, and, instead of resisting, I
lashed and spurred myself on, and was glad to feel my anger boiling more
and more fiercely.
"'Go away, or I will kill you !' I cried, purposely, with a frightful
voice, and I grasped her by the arm. She did not go away. Then I twisted
her arm, and pushed her away violently.
"'What is the matter with you ? Come to your senses !' she shrieked.
"'Go away,' roared I, louder than ever, rolling my eyes wildly. 'It takes
you to put me in such a fury. I do not answer for myself ! Go away!'
"In abandoning myself to my anger, I became steeped in it, and I wanted to
commit some violent act to show the force of my fury. I felt a terrible
desire to beat her, to kill her, but I realized that that could not be,
and I restrained myself. I drew back from her, rushed to the table,
grasped the paper-weight, and threw it on the floor by her side. I took
care to aim a little to one side, and, before she disappeared (I did it so
that she could see it), I grasped a candlestick, which I also hurled, and
then took down the barometer, continuing to shout:
"'Go away ! I do not answer for myself !'
"She disappeared, and I immediately ceased my demonstrations. An hour
later the old servant came to me and said that my wife was in a fit of
hysterics. I went to see her. She sobbed and laughed, incapable of
expressing anything, her whole body in a tremble. She was not shamming,
she was really sick. We sent for the doctor, and all night long I cared
for her. Toward daylight she grew calmer, and we became reconciled under
the influence of that feeling which we called 'love.' The next morning,
when, after the reconciliation, I confessed to her that I was jealous of
Troukhatchevsky, she was not at all embarrassed, and began to laugh in the
most natural way, so strange did the possibility of being led astray by
such a man appear to her.
"'With such a man can an honest woman entertain any feeling beyond the
pleasure of enjoying music with him ? But if you like, I am ready to never
see him again, even on Sunday, although everybody has been invited. Write
him that I am indisposed, and that will end the matter. Only one thing
annoys me, that any one could have thought him dangerous. I am too
proud not to detest such thoughts.'
"And she did not lie. She believed what she said. She hoped by her words
to provoke in herself a contempt for him, and thereby to defend herself.
But she did not succeed. Everything was directed against her, especially
that abominable music. So ended the quarrel, and on Sunday our guests
came, and Troukhatchevsky and my wife again played together."
CHAPTER XXIII
"I think that it is superfluous to say that I was very vain. If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living. So for that Sunday I had busied myself in tastefully arranging things for the dinner and the musical soiree. I had purchased myself numerous things for the dinner, and had chosen the guests. Toward six o'clock they arrived, and after them Troukhatchevsky, in his dress-coat, with diamond shirt-studs, in bad taste. He bore himself with ease. To all questions he responded promptly, with a smile of contentment and understanding, and that peculiar expression which was intended to mean: 'All that you may do and say will be exactly what I expected.' Everything about him that was not correct I now noticed with especial pleasure, for it all tended to tranquillize me, and prove to me that to my wife he stood in such a degree of inferiority that, as she had told me, she could not stoop to his level. Less because of my wife's assurances than because of the atrocious sufferings which I felt in jealousy, I no longer allowed myself to be jealous.
"In spite of that, I was not at ease with the musician or with her during dinner-time and the time that elapsed before the beginning of the music. Involuntarily I followed each of their gestures and looks. The dinner, like all dinners, was tiresome and conventional. Not long afterward the music began. He went to get his violin; my wife advanced to the piano, and rummaged among the scores. Oh, how well I remember all the details of that evening! I remember how he brought the violin, how he opened the box, took off the serge embroidered by a lady's hand, and began to tune the instrument. I can still see my wife sit down, with a false air of indifference, under which it was plain that she hid a great timidity, a timidity that was especially due to her comparative lack of musical knowledge. She sat down with that false air in front of the piano, and then began the usual preliminaries, the pizzicati of the violin and the arrangement of the scores. I remember then how they looked at each other, and cast a glance at their auditors who were taking their seats. They said a few words to each other, and the music began. They played Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata.' Do you know the first presto ? Do you know it ?
Ah !" . . .
Posdnicheff heaved a sigh, and was silent for a long time.
"A terrible thing is that sonata, especially the presto ! And a terrible thing is music in general. What is it ? Why does it do what it does ? They say that music stirs the soul. Stupidity ! A lie ! It acts, it acts frightfully (I speak for myself), but not in an ennobling way. It acts neither in an ennobling nor a debasing way, but in an irritating way. How shall I say it ? Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I become confounded with his soul, and with him I pass from one condition to another. But why that ? I know nothing about it ? But he who wrote Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata' knew well why he found himself in a certain condition. That condition led him to certain actions, and for that reason to him had a meaning, but to me none, none whatever. And that is why music provokes an excitement which it does not bring to a conclusion. For instance, a military march is played; the soldier passes to the sound of this march, and the music is finished. A dance is played; I have finished dancing, and the music is finished. A mass is sung; I receive the sacrament, and again the music is finished. But any other music provokes an excitement, and this excitement is not accompanied by the thing that needs properly to be done, and that is why music is so dangerous, and sometimes acts so frightfully.
"In China music is under the control of the State, and that is the way it ought to be. Is it admissible that the first comer should hypnotize one or more persons, and then do with them as he likes ? And especially that the hypnotizer should be the first immoral individual who happens to come along? It is a frightful power in the hands of any one, no matter whom. For instance, should they be allowed to play this 'Kreutzer Sonata,' the first presto, and there are many like it, in parlors, among ladies wearing low necked dresses, or in concerts, then finish the piece, receive the applause, and then begin another piece ? These things should be played under certain circumstances, only in cases where it is necessary to incite certain actions corresponding to the music. But to incite an energy of feeling which corresponds to neither the time nor the place, and is expended in nothing, cannot fail to act dangerously. On me in particular this piece acted in a frightful manner. One would have said that new sentiments, new virtualities, of which I was formerly ignorant, had developed in me. 'Ah, yes, that's it ! Not at all as I lived and thought before! This is the right way to live !'
"Thus I spoke to my soul as I listened to that music. What was this new thing that I thus learned ? That I did not realize, but the consciousness of this indefinite state filled me with joy. In that state there was no room for jealousy. The same faces, and among them HE and my wife, I saw in a different light. This music transported me into an unknown world, where there was no room for jealousy. Jealousy and the feelings that provoke it seemed to me trivialities, nor worth thinking of.
"After the presto followed the andante, not very new, with commonplace variations, and the feeble finale. Then they played more, at the request of the guests, first an elegy by Ernst, and then various other pieces. They were all very well, but did not produce upon me a tenth part of the impression that the opening piece did. I felt light and gay throughout the evening. As for my wife, never had I seen her as she was that night. Those brilliant eyes, that severity and majestic expression while she was playing, and then that utter languor, that weak, pitiable, and happy smile after she had finished, I saw them all and attached no importance to them, believing that she felt as I did, that to her, as to me, new sentiments had been revealed, as through a fog. During almost the whole evening I was not jealous.
"Two days later I was to start for the assembly of the Zemstvo, and for that reason, on taking leave of me and carrying all his scores with him, Troukhatchevsky asked me when I should return. I inferred from that that he believed it impossible to come to my house during my absence, and that was agreeable to me. Now I was not to return before his departure from the city. So we bade each other a definite farewell. For the first time I shook his hand with pleasure, and thanked him for the satisfaction that he had given me. He likewise took leave of my wife, and their parting seemed to me very natural and proper. All went marvellously. My wife and I retired, well satisfied with the evening. We talked of our impressions in a general way, and we were nearer together and more friendly than we had been for a long time."
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
"I had to go twenty-five versts by carriage and eight hours by train. By carriage it was a very pleasant journey. The coolness of autumn was accompanied by a brilliant sun. You know the weather when the wheels imprint themselves upon the dirty road. The road was level, and the light strong, and the air strengthening. The tarantass was comfortable. As I looked at the horses, the fields, and the people whom we passed, I forgot where I was going.
Sometimes it seemed to me that I was travelling without an object, simply promenading, and that I should go on thus to the end of the world. And I was happy when I so forgot myself. But when I remembered where I was going, I said to myself: 'I shall see later. Don't think about it.'
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIII
"I think that it is superfluous to say that I was very vain. If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living. So for that Sunday I had busied myself in tastefully arranging things for the dinner and the musical soiree. I had purchased myself numerous things for the dinner, and had chosen the guests. Toward six o'clock they arrived, and after them Troukhatchevsky, in his dress-coat, with diamond shirt-studs, in bad taste. He bore himself with ease. To all questions he responded promptly, with a smile of contentment and understanding, and that peculiar expression which was intended to mean: 'All that you may do and say will be exactly what I expected.' Everything about him that was not correct I now noticed with especial pleasure, for it all tended to tranquillize me, and prove to me that to my wife he stood in such a degree of inferiority that, as she had told me, she could not stoop to his level. Less because of my wife's assurances than because of the atrocious sufferings which I felt in jealousy, I no longer allowed myself to be jealous.
"In spite of that, I was not at ease with the musician or with her during dinner-time and the time that elapsed before the beginning of the music. Involuntarily I followed each of their gestures and looks. The dinner, like all dinners, was tiresome and conventional. Not long afterward the music began. He went to get his violin; my wife advanced to the piano, and rummaged among the scores. Oh, how well I remember all the details of that evening! I remember how he brought the violin, how he opened the box, took off the serge embroidered by a lady's hand, and began to tune the instrument. I can still see my wife sit down, with a false air of indifference, under which it was plain that she hid a great timidity, a timidity that was especially due to her comparative lack of musical knowledge. She sat down with that false air in front of the piano, and then began the usual preliminaries, the pizzicati of the violin and the arrangement of the scores. I remember then how they looked at each other, and cast a glance at their auditors who were taking their seats. They said a few words to each other, and the music began. They played Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata.' Do you know the first presto ? Do you know it ?
Ah !" . . .
Posdnicheff heaved a sigh, and was silent for a long time.
"A terrible thing is that sonata, especially the presto ! And a terrible thing is music in general. What is it ? Why does it do what it does ? They say that music stirs the soul. Stupidity ! A lie ! It acts, it acts frightfully (I speak for myself), but not in an ennobling way. It acts neither in an ennobling nor a debasing way, but in an irritating way. How shall I say it ? Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I become confounded with his soul, and with him I pass from one condition to another. But why that ? I know nothing about it ? But he who wrote Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata' knew well why he found himself in a certain condition. That condition led him to certain actions, and for that reason to him had a meaning, but to me none, none whatever. And that is why music provokes an excitement which it does not bring to a conclusion. For instance, a military march is played; the soldier passes to the sound of this march, and the music is finished. A dance is played; I have finished dancing, and the music is finished. A mass is sung; I receive the sacrament, and again the music is finished. But any other music provokes an excitement, and this excitement is not accompanied by the thing that needs properly to be done, and that is why music is so dangerous, and sometimes acts so frightfully.
"In China music is under the control of the State, and that is the way it ought to be. Is it admissible that the first comer should hypnotize one or more persons, and then do with them as he likes ? And especially that the hypnotizer should be the first immoral individual who happens to come along? It is a frightful power in the hands of any one, no matter whom. For instance, should they be allowed to play this 'Kreutzer Sonata,' the first presto, and there are many like it, in parlors, among ladies wearing low necked dresses, or in concerts, then finish the piece, receive the applause, and then begin another piece ? These things should be played under certain circumstances, only in cases where it is necessary to incite certain actions corresponding to the music. But to incite an energy of feeling which corresponds to neither the time nor the place, and is expended in nothing, cannot fail to act dangerously. On me in particular this piece acted in a frightful manner. One would have said that new sentiments, new virtualities, of which I was formerly ignorant, had developed in me. 'Ah, yes, that's it ! Not at all as I lived and thought before! This is the right way to live !'
"Thus I spoke to my soul as I listened to that music. What was this new thing that I thus learned ? That I did not realize, but the consciousness of this indefinite state filled me with joy. In that state there was no room for jealousy. The same faces, and among them HE and my wife, I saw in a different light. This music transported me into an unknown world, where there was no room for jealousy. Jealousy and the feelings that provoke it seemed to me trivialities, nor worth thinking of.
"After the presto followed the andante, not very new, with commonplace variations, and the feeble finale. Then they played more, at the request of the guests, first an elegy by Ernst, and then various other pieces. They were all very well, but did not produce upon me a tenth part of the impression that the opening piece did. I felt light and gay throughout the evening. As for my wife, never had I seen her as she was that night. Those brilliant eyes, that severity and majestic expression while she was playing, and then that utter languor, that weak, pitiable, and happy smile after she had finished, I saw them all and attached no importance to them, believing that she felt as I did, that to her, as to me, new sentiments had been revealed, as through a fog. During almost the whole evening I was not jealous.
"Two days later I was to start for the assembly of the Zemstvo, and for that reason, on taking leave of me and carrying all his scores with him, Troukhatchevsky asked me when I should return. I inferred from that that he believed it impossible to come to my house during my absence, and that was agreeable to me. Now I was not to return before his departure from the city. So we bade each other a definite farewell. For the first time I shook his hand with pleasure, and thanked him for the satisfaction that he had given me. He likewise took leave of my wife, and their parting seemed to me very natural and proper. All went marvellously. My wife and I retired, well satisfied with the evening. We talked of our impressions in a general way, and we were nearer together and more friendly than we had been for a long time."
CHAPTER XXIV
"Two days later I started for the assembly, having bid farewell to my wife
in an excellent and tranquil state of mind. In the district there was
always much to be done. It was a world and a life apart. During two days I
spent ten hours at the sessions. The evening of the second day, on
returning to my district lodgings, I found a letter from my wife, telling
me of the children, of their uncle, of the servants, and, among other
things, as if it were perfectly natural, that Troukhatchevsky had been at
the house, and had brought her the promised scores. He had also proposed
that they play again, but she had refused.
"For my part, I did not remember at all that he had promised any score. It
had seemed to me on Sunday evening that he took a definite leave, and for
this reason the news gave me a disagreeable surprise. I read the letter
again. There was something tender and timid about it. It produced an
extremely painful impression upon me. My heart swelled, and the mad beast
of jealousy began to roar in his lair, and seemed to want to leap upon his
prey. But I was afraid of this beast, and I imposed silence upon it.
"What an abominable sentiment is jealousy ! 'What could be more natural
than what she has written ?' said I to myself. I went to bed, thinking
myself tranquil again. I thought of the business that remained to be done,
and I went to sleep without thinking of her.
"During these assemblies of the Zemstvo I always slept badly in my strange
quarters. That night I went to sleep directly, but, as sometimes happens,
a sort of sudden shock awoke me. I thought immediately of her, of my
physical love for her, of Troukhatchevsky, and that between them
everything had happened. And a feeling of rage compressed my heart, and I
tried to quiet myself.
"'How stupid !' said I to myself; 'there is no reason, none at all. And why
humiliate ourselves, herself and myself, and especially myself, by
supposing such horrors ? This mercenary violinist, known as a bad man, shall
I think of him in connection with a respectable woman, the mother of a
family, MY wife ? How silly !' But on the other hand, I said to myself: 'Why
should it not happen ?'
"Why ? Was it not the same simple and intelligible feeling in the name of
which I married, in the name of which I was living with her, the only
thing I wanted of her, and that which, consequently, others desired, this
musician among the rest ? He was not married, was in good health (I
remember how his teeth ground the gristle of the cutlets, and how eagerly
he emptied the glass of wine with his red lips), was careful of his
person, well fed, and not only without principles, but evidently with the
principle that one should take advantage of the pleasure that offers
itself. There was a bond between them, music,—the most refined form
of sensual voluptuousness. What was there to restrain them? Nothing.
Everything, on the contrary, attracted them. And she, she had been and had
remained a mystery. I did not know her. I knew her only as an animal, and
an animal nothing can or should restrain. And now I remember their faces
on Sunday evening, when, after the 'Kreutzer Sonata,' they played a
passionate piece, written I know not by whom, but a piece passionate to
the point of obscenity.
"'How could I have gone away?' said I to myself, as I recalled their
faces. 'Was it not clear that between them everything was done that
evening? Was it not clear that between them not only there were no more
obstacles, but that both especially she felt a certain shame
after what had happened at the piano ? How weakly, pitiably, happily she
smiled, as she wiped the perspiration from her reddened face ! They already
avoided each other's eyes, and only at the supper, when she poured some
water for him, did they look at each other and smile imperceptibly.'
"Now I remember with fright that look and that scarcely perceptible smile.
'Yes, everything has happened,' a voice said to me, and directly another
said the opposite. 'Are you mad ? It is impossible !' said the second voice.
"It was too painful to me to remain thus stretched in the darkness. I
struck a match, and the little yellow-papered room frightened me. I
lighted a cigarette, and, as always happens, when one turns in a circle of
inextricable contradiction, I began to smoke. I smoked cigarette after
cigarette to dull my senses, that I might not see my contradictions. All
night I did not sleep, and at five o'clock, when it was not yet light, I
decided that I could stand this strain no longer, and that I would leave
directly. There was a train at eight o'clock. I awakened the keeper who
was acting as my servant, and sent him to look for horses. To the assembly
of Zemstvo I sent a message that I was called back to Moscow by pressing
business, and that I begged them to substitute for me a member of the
Committee. At eight o'clock I got into a tarantass and started off."
CHAPTER XXV
"I had to go twenty-five versts by carriage and eight hours by train. By carriage it was a very pleasant journey. The coolness of autumn was accompanied by a brilliant sun. You know the weather when the wheels imprint themselves upon the dirty road. The road was level, and the light strong, and the air strengthening. The tarantass was comfortable. As I looked at the horses, the fields, and the people whom we passed, I forgot where I was going.
Sometimes it seemed to me that I was travelling without an object, simply promenading, and that I should go on thus to the end of the world. And I was happy when I so forgot myself. But when I remembered where I was going, I said to myself: 'I shall see later. Don't think about it.'
"When half way, an incident happened to distract me still further. The
tarantass, though new, broke down, and had to be repaired. The delays in
looking for a telegue, the repairs, the payment, the tea in the inn, the
conversation with the dvornik, all served to amuse me. Toward nightfall
all was ready, and I started off again. By night the journey was still
pleasanter than by day. The moon in its first quarter, a slight frost, the
road still in good condition, the horses, the sprightly coachman, all
served to put me in good spirits. I scarcely thought of what awaited me,
and was gay perhaps because of the very thing that awaited me, and because
I was about to say farewell to the joys of life.
"But this tranquil state, the power of conquering my preoccupation, all
ended with the carriage drive. Scarcely had I entered the cars, when the
other thing began. Those eight hours on the rail were so terrible to me
that I shall never forget them in my life. Was it because on entering the
car I had a vivid imagination of having already arrived, or because the
railway acts upon people in such an exciting fashion ? At any rate, after
boarding the train I could no longer control my imagination, which
incessantly, with extraordinary vivacity, drew pictures before my eyes,
each more cynical than its predecessor, which kindled my jealousy. And
always the same things about what was happening at home during my absence.
I burned with indignation, with rage, and with a peculiar feeling which
steeped me in humiliation, as I contemplated these pictures. And I could
not tear myself out of this condition. I could not help looking at them, I
could not efface them, I could not keep from evoking them.
"The more I looked at these imaginary pictures, the more I believed in
their reality, forgetting that they had no serious foundation. The
vivacity of these images seemed to prove to me that my imaginations were a
reality. One would have said that a demon, against my will, was inventing
and breathing into me the most terrible fictions. A conversation which
dated a long time back, with the brother of Troukhatchevsky, I remembered
at that moment, in a sort of ecstasy, and it tore my heart as I connected
it with the musician and my wife. Yes, it was very long ago. The brother
of Troukhatchevsky, answering my questions as to whether he frequented
disreputable houses, said that a respectable man does not go where he may
contract a disease, in a low and unclean spot, when one can find an honest
woman. And here he, his brother, the musician, had found the honest woman.
'It is true that she is no longer in her early youth. She has lost a tooth
on one side, and her face is slightly bloated,' thought I for
Troukhatchevsky. 'But what is to be done ? One must profit by what one
has.'
"'Yes, he is bound to take her for his mistress,' said I to myself again;
'and besides, she is not dangerous.'
"'No, it is not possible' I rejoined in fright. 'Nothing, nothing of the
kind has happened, and there is no reason to suppose there has. Did she
not tell me that the very idea that I could be jealous of her because of
him was humiliating to her ?' 'Yes, but she lied,' I cried, and all began
over again.
"There were only two travellers in my compartment: an old woman with her
husband, neither of them very talkative; and even they got out at one of
the stations, leaving me all alone. I was like a beast in a cage. Now I
jumped up and approached the window, now I began to walk back and forth,
staggering as if I hoped to make the train go faster by my efforts, and
the car with its seats and its windows trembled continually, as ours does
now."
And Posdnicheff rose abruptly, took a few steps, and sat down again.
"Oh, I am afraid, I am afraid of railway carriages. Fear seizes me. I sat
down again, and I said to myself: 'I must think of something else. For
instance, of the inn keeper at whose house I took tea.' And then, in my
imagination arose the dvornik, with his long beard, and his grandson, a
little fellow of the same age as my little Basile. My little Basile ! My
little Basile ! He will see the musician kiss his mother ! What thoughts
will pass through his poor soul ! But what does that matter to her ! She
loves.
"And again it all began, the circle of the same thoughts. I suffered so
much that at last I did not know what to do with myself, and an idea
passed through my head that pleased me much, to get out upon the
rails, throw myself under the cars, and thus finish everything. One thing
prevented me from doing so. It was pity! It was pity for myself, evoking
at the same time a hatred for her, for him, but not so much for him.
Toward him I felt a strange sentiment of my humiliation and his victory,
but toward her a terrible hatred.
"'But I cannot kill myself and leave her free. She must suffer, she must
understand at least that I have suffered,' said I to myself.
"At a station I saw people drinking at the lunch counter, and directly I
went to swallow a glass of vodki. Beside me stood a Jew, drinking also. He
began to talk to me, and I, in order not to be left alone in my
compartment, went with him into his third-class, dirty, full of smoke, and
covered with peelings and sunflower seeds. There I sat down beside the
Jew, and, as it seemed, he told many anecdotes.
"First I listened to him, but I did not understand what he said. He
noticed it, and exacted my attention to his person. Then I rose and
entered my own compartment.
"'I must consider,' said I to myself, 'whether what I think is true,
whether there is any reason to torment myself.' I sat down, wishing to
reflect quietly; but directly, instead of the peaceful reflections, the
same thing began again. Instead of the reasoning, the pictures.
"'How many times have I tormented myself in this way,' I thought (I
recalled previous and similar fits of jealousy), 'and then seen it end in
nothing at all ? It is the same now. Perhaps, yes, surely, I shall find her
quietly sleeping. She will awaken, she will be glad, and in her words and
looks I shall see that nothing has happened, that all this is vain. Ah, if
it would only so turn out!' 'But no, that has happened too often ! Now the
end has come,' a voice said to me.
"And again it all began. Ah, what torture ! It is not to a hospital filled
with syphilitic patients that I would take a young man to deprive him of
the desire for women, but into my soul, to show him the demon which tore
it. The frightful part was that I recognized in myself an indisputable
right to the body of my wife, as if her body were entirely mine. And at
the same time I felt that I could not possess this body, that it was not
mine, that she could do with it as she liked, and that she liked to do
with it as I did not like. And I was powerless against him and against
her. He, like the Vanka of the song, would sing, before mounting the
gallows, how he would kiss her sweet lips, etc., and he would even have
the best of it before death. With her it was still worse. If she HAD NOT
DONE IT, she had the desire, she wished to do it, and I knew that she did.
That was worse yet. It would be better if she had already done it, to
relieve me of my uncertainty.
"In short, I could not say what I desired. I desired that she might not
want what she MUST want. It was complete madness."
CHAPTER XXVII
"At the station before the last, when the conductor came to take the
tickets, I took my baggage and went out on the car platform, and the
consciousness that the climax was near at hand only added to my agitation.
I was cold, my jaw trembled so that my teeth chattered. Mechanically I
left the station with the crowd, I took a tchik, and I started. I looked
at the few people passing in the streets and at the dvorniks. I read the
signs, without thinking of anything. After going half a verst my feet
began to feel cold, and I remembered that in the car I had taken off my
woollen socks, and had put them in my travelling bag. Where had I put the
bag ? Was it with me ? Yes, and the basket ?
"I bethought myself that I had totally forgotten my baggage. I took out my
check, and then decided it was not worth while to return. I continued on
my way. In spite of all my efforts to remember, I cannot at this moment
make out why I was in such a hurry. I know only that I was conscious that
a serious and menacing event was approaching in my life. It was a case of
real auto-suggestion. Was it so serious because I thought it so ? Or had I
a presentiment ? I do not know. Perhaps, too, after what has happened, all
previous events have taken on a lugubrious tint in my memory.
"I arrived at the steps. It was an hour past midnight. A few isvotchiks
were before the door, awaiting customers, attracted by the lighted windows
(the lighted windows were those of our parlor and reception room). Without
trying to account for this late illumination, I went up the steps, always
with the same expectation of something terrible, and I rang. The servant,
a good, industrious, and very stupid being, named Gregor, opened the door.
The first thing that leaped to my eyes in the hall, on the hat-stand,
among other garments, was an overcoat. I ought to have been astonished,
but I was not astonished. I expected it. 'That's it !' I said to myself.
"When I had asked Gregor who was there, and he had named Troukhatchevsky,
I inquired whether there were other visitors. He answered: 'Nobody.' I
remember the air with which he said that, with a tone that was intended to
give me pleasure, and dissipate my doubts. 'That's it! that's it !' I had
the air of saying to myself. 'And the children ?'
"'Thank God, they are very well. They went to sleep long ago.'
"I scarcely breathed, and I could not keep my jaw from trembling.
"Then it was not as I thought. I had often before returned home with the
thought that a misfortune had awaited me, but had been mistaken, and
everything was going on as usual. But now things were not going on as
usual. All that I had imagined, all that I believed to be chimeras, all
really existed. Here was the truth.
"I was on the point of sobbing, but straightway the demon whispered in my
ear: 'Weep and be sentimental, and they will separate quietly, and there
will be no proofs, and all your life you will doubt and suffer.' And pity
for myself vanished, and there remained only the bestial need of some
adroit, cunning, and energetic action. I became a beast, an intelligent
beast.
"'No, no,' said I to Gregor, who was about to announce my arrival. 'Do
this, take a carriage, and go at once for my baggage. Here is the check.
Start.'
"He went along the hall to get his overcoat. Fearing lest he might
frighten them, I accompanied him to his little room, and waited for him to
put on his things. In the dining-room could be heard the sound of
conversation and the rattling of knives and plates. They were eating. They
had not heard the ring. 'Now if they only do not go out,' I thought.
"Gregor put on his fur-collared coat and went out. I closed the door after
him. I felt anxious when I was alone, thinking that directly I should have
to act. How? I did not yet know. I knew only that all was ended, that
there could be no doubt of his innocence, and that in an instant my
relations with her were going to be terminated. Before, I had still
doubts. I said to myself: 'Perhaps this is not true. Perhaps I am
mistaken.' Now all doubt had disappeared. All was decided irrevocably.
Secretly, all alone with him, at night ! It is a violation of all duties !
Or, worse yet, she may make a show of that audacity, of that insolence in
crime, which, by its excess, tends to prove innocence. All is clear. No
doubt. I feared but one thing, that they might run in different
directions, that they might invent some new lie, and thus deprive me of
material proof, and of the sorrowful joy of punishing, yes, of executing
them.
"And to surprise them more quickly, I started on tiptoe for the
dining-room, not through the parlor, but through the hall and the
children's rooms. In the first room slept the little boy. In the second,
the old nurse moved in her bed, and seemed on the point of waking, and I
wondered what she would think when she knew all. And pity for myself gave
me such a pang that I could not keep the tears back. Not to wake the
children, I ran lightly through the hall into my study. I dropped upon the
sofa, and sobbed. 'I, an honest man, I, the son of my parents, who all my
life long have dreamed of family happiness, I who have never betrayed! . .
. And here my five children, and she embracing a musician because he has
red lips ! No, she is not a woman ! She is a bitch, a dirty bitch ! Beside
the chamber of the children, whom she had pretended to love all her life !
And then to think of what she wrote me ! And how do I know ? Perhaps it has
always been thus. Perhaps all these children, supposed to be mine, are the
children of my servants. And if I had arrived to-morrow, she would have
come to meet me with her coiffure, with her corsage, her indolent and
graceful movements (and I see her attractive and ignoble features), and
this jealous animal would have remained forever in my heart, tearing it.
What will the old nurse say ? And Gregor ? And the poor little Lise ? She
already understands things. And this impudence, this falsehood, this
bestial sensuality, that I know so well,' I said to myself.
"I tried to rise. I could not. My heart was beating so violently that I
could not hold myself upon my legs. 'Yes, I shall die of a rush of blood.
She will kill me. That is what she wants. What is it to her to kill ? But
that would be too agreeable to him, and I will not allow him to have this
pleasure.
"Yes, here I am, and there they are. They are laughing, they. . . . Yes,
in spite of the fact that she is no longer in her early youth, he has not
disdained her. At any rate, she is by no means ugly, and above all, not
dangerous to his dear health, to him. Why did I not stifle her then ?' said
I to myself, as I remembered that other scene of the previous week, when I
drove her from my study, and broke the furniture.
"And I recalled the state in which I was then. Not only did I recall it,
but I again entered into the same bestial state. And suddenly there came
to me a desire to act, and all reasoning, except such as was necessary to
action, vanished from my brain, and I was in the condition of a beast, and
of a man under the influence of physical excitement pending a danger, who
acts imperturbably, without haste, and yet without losing a minute,
pursuing a definite object.
"The first thing that I did was to take off my boots, and now, having only
stockings on, I advanced toward the wall, over the sofa, where firearms
and daggers were hanging, and I took down a curved Damascus blade, which I
had never used, and which was very sharp. I took it from its sheath. I
remember that the sheath fell upon the sofa, and that I said to myself: 'I
must look for it later; it must not be lost.'
"Then I took off my overcoat, which I had kept on all the time, and with
wolf-like tread started for THE ROOM. I do not remember how I proceeded,
whether I ran or went slowly, through what chambers I passed, how I
approached the dining-room, how I opened the door, how I entered. I
remember nothing about it."
CHAPTER XXVII
"I Remember only the expression of their faces when I opened the door. I
remember that, because it awakened in me a feeling of sorrowful joy. It
was an expression of terror, such as I desired. Never shall I forget that
desperate and sudden fright that appeared on their faces when they saw me.
He, I believe, was at the table, and, when he saw or heard me, he started,
jumped to his feet, and retreated to the sideboard. Fear was the only
sentiment that could be read with certainty in his face. In hers, too,
fear was to be read, but accompanied by other impressions. And yet, if her
face had expressed only fear, perhaps that which happened would not have
happened. But in the expression of her face there was at the first moment, at
least, I thought I saw it, a feeling of ennui, of discontent, at this
disturbance of her love and happiness. One would have said that her sole
desire was not to be disturbed IN THE MOMENT OF HER HAPPINESS. But these
expressions appeared upon their faces only for a moment. Terror almost
immediately gave place to interrogation. Would they lie or not? If yes,
they must begin. If not, something else was going to happen. But what?
"He gave her a questioning glance. On her face the expression of anguish
and ennui changed, it seemed to me, when she looked at him, into an
expression of anxiety for HIM. For a moment I stood in the doorway,
holding the dagger hidden behind my back. Suddenly he smiled, and in a
voice that was indifferent almost to the point of ridicule, he said:
"'We were having some music.'
"'I did not expect ,' she began at the same time, chiming in with
the tone of the other.
"But neither he nor she finished their remarks. The same rage that I had
felt the previous week took possession of me. I felt the need of giving
free course to my violence and 'the joy of wrath.'
"No, they did not finish. That other thing was going to begin, of which he
was afraid, and was going to annihilate what they wanted to say. I threw
myself upon her, still hiding the dagger, that he might not prevent me
from striking where I desired, in her bosom, under the breast. At that
moment he saw . . . and, what I did not expect on his part, he quickly
seized my hand, and cried:
"'Come to your senses! What are you doing ? Help ! Help !'
"I tore my hands from his grasp, and leaped upon him. I must have been
very terrible, for he turned as white as a sheet, to his lips. His eyes
scintillated singularly, and—again what I did not expect of him—he
scrambled under the piano, toward the other room. I tried to follow him,
but a very heavy weight fell upon my left arm. It was she.
"I made an effort to clear myself. She clung more heavily than ever,
refusing to let go. This unexpected obstacle, this burden, and this
repugnant touch only irritated me the more. I perceived that I was
completely mad, that I must be frightful, and I was glad of it. With a
sudden impulse, and with all my strength, I dealt her, with my left elbow,
a blow squarely in the face.
"She uttered a cry and let go my arm. I wanted to follow the other, but I
felt that it would be ridiculous to pursue in my stockings the lover of my
wife, and I did not wish to be grotesque, I wished to be terrible. In
spite of my extreme rage, I was all the time conscious of the impression
that I was making upon others, and even this impression partially guided
me.
"I turned toward her. She had fallen on the long easy chair, and, covering
her face at the spot where I had struck her, she looked at me. Her
features exhibited fear and hatred toward me, her enemy, such as the rat
exhibits when one lifts the rat-trap. At least, I saw nothing in her but
that fear and hatred, the fear and hatred which love for another had
provoked. Perhaps I still should have restrained myself, and should not
have gone to the last extremity, if she had maintained silence. But
suddenly she began to speak; she grasped my hand that held the dagger.
"'Come to your senses ! What are you doing ? What is the matter with you ?
Nothing has happened, nothing, nothing ! I swear it to you !'
"I might have delayed longer, but these last words, from which I inferred
the contrary of what they affirmed, that is, that EVERYTHING had
happened, these words called for a reply. And the reply must
correspond to the condition into which I had lashed myself, and which was
increasing and must continue to increase. Rage has its laws.
"'Do not lie, wretch. Do not lie !' I roared.
"With my left hand I seized her hands. She disengaged herself. Then,
without dropping my dagger, I seized her by the throat, forced her to the
floor, and began to strangle her. With her two hands she clutched mine,
tearing them from her throat, stifling. Then I struck her a blow with the
dagger, in the left side, between the lower ribs.
"When people say that they do not remember what they do in a fit of fury,
they talk nonsense. It is false. I remember everything.
"I did not lose my consciousness for a single moment. The more I lashed
myself to fury, the clearer my mind became, and I could not help seeing
what I did. I cannot say that I knew in advance what I would do, but at
the moment when I acted, and it seems to me even a little before, I knew
what I was doing, as if to make it possible to repent, and to be able to
say later that I could have stopped.
"I knew that I struck the blow between the ribs, and that the dagger
entered.
"At the second when I did it, I knew that I was performing a horrible act,
such as I had never performed, an act that would have frightful
consequences. My thought was as quick as lightning, and the deed followed
immediately. The act, to my inner sense, had an extraordinary clearness. I
perceived the resistance of the corset and then something else, and then
the sinking of the knife into a soft substance. She clutched at the dagger
with her hands, and cut herself with it, but could not restrain the blow.
"Long afterward, in prison when the moral revolution had been effected
within me, I thought of that minute, I remembered it as far as I could,
and I co-ordinated all the sudden changes. I remembered the terrible
consciousness which I felt, that I was killing a wife, MY wife.
"I well remember the horror of that consciousness and I know vaguely that,
having plunged in the dagger, I drew it out again immediately, wishing to
repair and arrest my action. She straightened up and cried:
"'Nurse, he has killed me !'
"The old nurse, who had heard the noise, was standing in the doorway. I
was still erect, waiting, and not believing myself in what had happened.
But at that moment, from under her corset, the blood gushed forth. Then
only did I understand that all reparation was impossible, and promptly I
decided that it was not even necessary, that all had happened in
accordance with my wish, and that I had fulfilled my desire. I waited
until she fell, and until the nurse, exclaiming, 'Oh, my God !' ran to her;
then only I threw away the dagger and went out of the room.
"'I must not be agitated. I must be conscious of what I am doing,' I said
to myself, looking neither at her nor at the old nurse. The latter cried
and called the maid. I passed through the hall, and, after having sent the
maid, started for my study.
"'What shall I do now ?' I asked myself.
"And immediately I understood what I should do. Directly after entering
the study, I went straight to the wall, took down the revolver, and
examined it attentively. It was loaded. Then I placed it on the table.
Next I picked up the sheath of the dagger, which had dropped down behind
the sofa, and then I sat down. I remained thus for a long time. I thought
of nothing, I did not try to remember anything. I heard a stifled noise of
steps, a movement of objects and of tapestries, then the arrival of a
person, and then the arrival of another person. Then I saw Gregor bring
into my room the baggage from the railway; as if any one needed it !
"'Have you heard what has happened ?' I asked him. 'Have you told the
dvornik to inform the police ?'
"He made no answer, and went out. I rose, closed the door, took the
cigarettes and the matches, and began to smoke. I had not finished one
cigarette, when a drowsy feeling came over me and sent me into a deep
sleep. I surely slept two hours. I remember having dreamed that I was on
good terms with her, that after a quarrel we were in the act of making up,
that something prevented us, but that we were friends all the same.
"A knock at the door awoke me.
"'It is the police,' thought I, as I opened my eyes. 'I have killed, I
believe. But perhaps it is SHE; perhaps nothing has happened.'
"Another knock. I did not answer. I was solving the question: 'Has it
happened or not ? Yes, it has happened.'
"I remembered the resistance of the corset, and then. . . . 'Yes, it has
happened. Yes, it has happened. Yes, now I must execute myself,' said I to
myself.
"I said it, but I knew well that I should not kill myself. Nevertheless, I
rose and took the revolver, but, strange thing, I remembered that formerly
I had very often had suicidal ideas, that that very night, on the cars, it
had seemed to me easy, especially easy because I thought how it would
stupefy her. Now I not only could not kill myself, but I could not even
think of it.
"'Why do it ?' I asked myself, without answering.
"Another knock at the door.
"'Yes, but I must first know who is knocking. I have time enough.'
"I put the revolver back on the table, and hid it under my newspaper. I
went to the door and drew back the bolt.
"It was my wife's sister, a good and stupid widow.
"'Basile, what does this mean ?' said she, and her tears, always ready,
began to flow.
"'What do you want ?' I asked roughly.
"I saw clearly that there was no necessity of being rough with her, but I
could not speak in any other tone.
"'Basile, she is dying. Ivan Fedorowitch says so.'
"Ivan Fedorowitch was the doctor, HER doctor, her counsellor.
"'Is he here ?' I inquired.
"And all my hatred of her arose anew.
"Well, what ?
"'Basile, go to her! Ah! how terrible it is!' said she.
"'Go to her ?' I asked myself; and immediately I made answer to myself that
I ought to go, that probably that was the thing that is usually done when
a husband like myself kills his wife, that it was absolutely necessary
that I should go and see her.
"'If that is the proper thing, I must go,' I repeated to myself. 'Yes, if
it is necessary, I shall still have time,' said I to myself, thinking of
my intention of blowing my brains out.
"And I followed my sister-in-law. 'Now there are going to be phrases and
grimaces, but I will not yield,' I declared to myself.
"'Wait,' said I to my sister-in-law, 'it is stupid to be without boots.
Let me at least put on my slippers.'"
CHAPTER XXVIII
"Strange thing ! Again, when I had left my study, and was passing through
the familiar rooms, again the hope came to me that nothing had happened.
But the odor of the drugs, iodoform and phenic acid, brought me back to a
sense of reality.
"'No, everything has happened.'
"In passing through the hall, beside the children's chamber, I saw little
Lise. She was looking at me, with eyes that were full of fear. I even
thought that all the children were looking at me. As I approached the door
of our sleeping-room, a servant opened it from within, and came out. The
first thing that I noticed was HER light gray dress upon a chair, all dark
with blood. On our common bed she was stretched, with knees drawn up.
"She lay very high, upon pillows, with her chemise half open. Linen had
been placed upon the wound. A heavy smell of iodoform filled the room.
Before, and more than anything else, I was astonished at her face, which
was swollen and bruised under the eyes and over a part of the nose. This
was the result of the blow that I had struck her with my elbow, when she
had tried to hold me back. Of beauty there was no trace left. I saw
something hideous in her. I stopped upon the threshold.
"'Approach, approach her,' said her sister.
"'Yes, probably she repents,' thought I; 'shall I forgive her ? Yes, she is
dying, I must forgive her,' I added, trying to be generous.
"I approached the bedside. With difficulty she raised her eyes, one of
which was swollen, and uttered these words haltingly:
"'You have accomplished what you desired. You have killed me.'
"And in her face, through the physical sufferings, in spite of the
approach of death, was expressed the same old hatred, so familiar to me.
"'The children . . . I will not give them to you . . . all the same. . . .
She (her sister) shall take them.' . . .
"But of that which I considered essential, of her fault, of her treason,
one would have said that she did not think it necessary to say even a
word.
"'Yes, revel in what you have done.'
"And she sobbed.
"At the door stood her sister with the children.
"'Yes, see what you have done !'
"I cast a glance at the children, and then at her bruised and swollen
face, and for the first time I forgot myself (my rights, my pride), and
for the first time I saw in her a human being, a sister.
"And all that which a moment before had been so offensive to me now seemed
to me so petty, all this jealousy, and, on the contrary, what
I had done seemed to me so important that I felt like bending over,
approaching my face to her hand, and saying:
"'Forgive me!'
"But I did not dare. She was silent, with eyelids lowered, evidently
having no strength to speak further. Then her deformed face began to
tremble and shrivel, and she feebly pushed me back.
"'Why has all this happened ? Why ?'
"'Forgive me,' said I.
"'Yes, if you had not killed me,' she cried suddenly, and her eyes shone
feverishly. 'Forgiveness that is nothing. . . . If I only do not
die ! Ah, you have accomplished what you desired! I hate you!'
"Then she grew delirious. She was frightened, and cried:
"'Fire, I do not fear . . . but strike them all . . . He has gone. . . .
He has gone.' . . .
"The delirium continued. She no longer recognized the children, not even
little Lise, who had approached. Toward noon she died. As for me, I was
arrested before her death, at eight o'clock in the morning. They took me
to the police station, and then to prison, and there, during eleven
months, awaiting the verdict, I reflected upon myself, and upon my past,
and I understood it. Yes, I began to understand from the third day. The
third day they took me to the house." . . .
Posdnicheff seemed to wish to add something, but, no longer having the
strength to repress his sobs, he stopped. After a few minutes, having
recovered his calmness, he resumed:
"I began to understand only when I saw her in the coffin." . . .
He uttered a sob, and then immediately continued, with haste:
"Then only, when I saw her dead face, did I understand all that I had
done. I understood that it was I, I, who had killed her. I understood that
I was the cause of the fact that she, who had been a moving, living,
palpitating being, had now become motionless and cold, and that there was
no way of repairing this thing. He who has not lived through that cannot
understand it."
We remained silent a long time. Posdnicheff sobbed and trembled before me.
His face had become delicate and long, and his mouth had grown larger.
"Yes," said he suddenly, "if I had known what I now know, I should never
have married her, never, not for anything."
Again we remained silent for a long time.
"Yes, that is what I have done, that is my experience, We must understand
the real meaning of the words of the Gospel, Matthew, V. 28, 'that
whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery';
and these words relate to the wife, to the sister, and not only to the
wife of another, but especially to one's own wife."
THE END
THE END