mysteriously sweet life. There were many of us in this mirror, dark in
soul, and slumbering of consciousness. We could not speak to one
another, but we felt each other’s proximity and loved one another. We
could see nothing, we heard nothing clearly, And our existence was like
the enfeeblement that comes from being unable to breathe. Only when a
being from the world of men approached the mirror, we, suddenly taking
up his form, could look forth into the world, could distinguish voices,
and breathe a full breath. I think that the life of the dead is like
that--a dim consciousness of one’s ego, a confused memory of the past
and an oppressive desire to be incarnated anew even if only for a
moment, to see, to hear, to speak.... And each of us cherished and
concealed a secret dream--to free one’s self, to find for one’s self a
new body, to go out into the world of constancy and steadfastness.
During the first days I felt myself absolutely unhappy in my new
position. I still knew nothing, understood nothing. I took the form of
my rival submissively and unthinkingly when she came near the mirror and
began to jeer at me. And she did this fairly often. It afforded her
great delight to flaunt her vitality before me, her reality. She would
sit down and force me also to sit down, stand up and exult as she saw me
stand, wave her arms about, dance, force me to repeat her movements, and
burst out laughing and continue to laugh so that I should have to laugh
too. She would shriek insulting words in my face and I could make no
answer to them. She would threaten me with her fist and mock at my
forced repetition of the gesture. She would turn her back on me and I,
losing sight, losing features, would become conscious of the shame of
the half-existence left to me.... And then suddenly, with one blow she
would whirl the mirror round on its axle and with the oscillation throw
me completely into nonentity.
Little by little, however, the insults and humiliations awoke a
consciousness in me. I realised that my rival was now living my life,
wearing my dresses, being considered as my husband’s wife, and occupying
my place in the world. Then there grew up in my soul a feeling of hate
and a thirst for vengeance, like two fiery flowers. I began bitterly to
curse myself for having, by my weakness or my criminal curiosity,
allowed her to conquer me. I arrived at the conviction that this
adventuress would never have triumphed over me if I myself had not aided
her in her wiles. And so, as I became more familiar with some of the
conditions of my new existence, I resolved to continue with her the same
fight which she had carried on with me. If she, a shadow, could occupy
the place of a real woman, was it possible that I, a human being, and
only temporarily a shadow, should not be stronger than a phantom?
I began from a very long way off. At first I pretended that the mockery
of my rival tormented me quite unbearably. I purposely afforded her all
the satisfaction of victory. I provoked in her the secret instinct of
the executioner throwing himself upon his helpless victim. She gave
herself up to this bait. She was attracted by this game with me. She put
forth the wings of her imagination and thought out new trials for me.
She invented thousands of wiles to show me over and over again that
I--was only a reflection, that I had no life of my own. Sometimes she
played on the piano in front of me, torturing me by the soundlessness of
my world. Sometimes, seated before the mirror she would drink in tiny
sips my favourite liqueurs, compelling me only to pretend that I also
was drinking them. Sometimes, at length, she would bring into my boudoir
people whom I hated, and before my face she would allow them to kiss
her body, letting them think that they were kissing me. And afterwards
when we were alone she would burst into a malicious and triumphant
laugh. But this laugh did not wound me at all; there was sweetness in
its keenness: my expectation of revenge!
Unnoticeably, in the hours of her insults to me, I would accustom my
rival to look me in the eyes and I would gradually overpower her gaze.
Soon at my will I could already force her to raise and lower her eyelids
and make this and that movement of the face. I had already begun to
triumph though I hid my feeling under a mask of suffering. Strength of
soul grew up within me and I began to dare to lay commands upon my
enemy: To-day you shall do so-and-so, to-day you shall go to
such-and-such a place, to-morrow you shall come to me at such a time.
And _she_ would fulfil them. I entangled her soul in the nets of my
desires woven together with a strong thread in which I held her soul,
and I secretly rejoiced when I noticed my success. When one day, in the
hour of her laughter, she suddenly caught on my lips a victorious smile
which I was unable to hide, it was already too late. _She_ rushed out of
the room in a fury, but as I fell into the sleep of my nonentity I knew
that she would return, knew that she would submit to me. And a rapture
of victory gushed out over my involuntary lack of strength, piercing
with a rainbow shaft of light the gloom of my seeming death.
She did return! She came up to me in anger and terror, shrieked to me,
threatened me. But I was commanding her to do it. And she was obliged to
submit. Then began the game of a cat with a mouse. At any time I could
have cast her back into the depths of the glass and come forth myself
again into sounding and hard actuality. But I delayed to do this. It was
sweet to me to indulge in non-existence sometimes. It was sweet to me to
intoxicate myself with the possibility. At last (this is strange, is it
not?) there suddenly was aroused in me a pity for my rival, for my
enemy, for my executioner. Everything in her was something of my own,
and it was dreadful for me to drag her forth from the realities of life
and turn her into a phantom. I hesitated and dare not do it, I put it
off from day to day, I did not know myself what I wanted and what I
dreaded.
And suddenly on a clear spring day men came into the boudoir with planks
and axes. There was no life in me, I lay in the voluptuousness of
torpor, but without seeing them I knew they were there. The men began to
busy themselves near the mirror which was my universe. And one after
another the souls who lived in it with me were awakened and took
transparent flesh in the form of reflections. A dreadful uneasiness
agitated my slumbering soul. With a presentiment of horror, a
presentiment even of irretrievable ruin, I gathered together all the
might of my will. What efforts it cost me to struggle against the
lassitude of half-existence! So living people sometimes struggle with a
nightmare, tearing themselves from its suffocating bands towards
actuality.
I concentrated all the force of my suggestion into a summons, directed
towards her, towards my rival--“Come hither!” I hypnotised her,
magnetised her with all the tension of my half-slumbering will. There
was little time. The mirror had already begun to swing. They were
already preparing to nail it up in a wooden coffin, to take it away:
whither I knew not. And with an almost mortal effort I called again and
again, “Come!” And I suddenly began to feel that I was coming to life.
_She_, my enemy, opened the door, and came to meet me, pale, half-dead,
in answer to my call, with faltering steps as men go to punishment. I
fastened my eyes on hers, bound up my gaze with hers, and when I had
done this I knew already that I had gained the victory.
I at once compelled her to send the men out of the room. _She_ submitted
without even making an attempt to oppose me. We were alone together once
more. To delay was no longer possible. And I could not bring myself to
forgive her craftiness. In her place, in my time, I should have acted
otherwise. Now I ordered her, without pity, to come to meet me. A moan
of torture opened her lips, her eyes widened as before a phantom, but
she came, trembling, falling--she came. I also went forward to meet her,
lips curving triumphantly, eyes wide open with joy, swaying in an
intoxicating rapture. Again our hands touched each other’s, again our
lips came near together, and we fell each into the other, burning with
the indescribable pain of bodily exchange. In another moment I was
already in front of the mirror, my breast filled itself with air, I
cried out loudly and victoriously and fell just here, in front of the
pier-glass, prone from exhaustion.
My husband and the servants ran towards me. I could only tell them to
fulfil my previous orders and take the mirror away, out of the house, at
once. That was wisely thought, wasn’t it? You see she, that other, might
have profited by my weakness in the first minutes of my return to life,
and by a desperate assault might have tried to wrest the victory from my
hands. Sending the mirror out of the house, I could ensure my own
quietude for a long time, as long as I liked, and my rival had earned
such a punishment for her cunning. I defeated her with her own tools,
with the blade which she herself had raised against me.
After having given this order I lost consciousness. They laid me on my
bed. A doctor was called in. I was treated as suffering from a nervous
fever. For a long while my relatives had thought me ill, and not normal.
In the first outburst of exultation I told them all that had happened to
me. My stories only increased their suspicions. They sent me to a home
for the mentally afflicted, and I am there now. All my being, I agree,
is profoundly shaken. But I do not want to stay here. I am eager to
return to the joys of life, to all the countless pleasures which are
accessible to a living human being. I have been deprived of them too
long.
Besides--shall I say it?--there is one thing which I am bound to do as
soon as possible. I ought to have no doubt that I am _this_ I. But all
the same, whenever I begin to think of her who is imprisoned in my
mirror I begin to be seized by a strange hesitation. What if the real
I--is there? Then I myself who think this, I who write this, I--am a
shadow, I--am a phantom, I--am a reflection. In me are only the poured
forth remembrances, thoughts and feelings of that other, the real
person. And, in reality, I am thrown into the depths of the mirror in
nonentity, I am pining, exhausted, dying. I know, I almost know that
this is not true. But in order to disperse the last clouds of doubt, I
ought again once more, for the last time, to see that mirror. I must
look into it once more to be convinced, that there--is the impostor, my
enemy, she who played my part for some months. I shall see this and all
the confusion of my soul will pass away, and I shall again be free from
care--bright, happy. Where is this mirror? Where shall I find it? I
must, I must once more look into its depths!...
PROTECTION:
A CHRISTMAS STORY
Colonel R. told me this story. We were staying together at the estate of
our mutual relatives, the M’s. It was Christmas-time, and in the
drawing-room one evening the talk turned on ghosts. The Colonel took no
part in the conversation, but when we were alone together--we slept in
the same room--he told me the following story.
* * * * *
This happened five-and-twenty years ago, and more: it was in the middle
of the seventies. I had only just got my commission. Our regiment was
stationed at *, a small provincial town in the government of X. We spent
our time as officers usually do: we drank, played cards, and paid
attentions to women.
Among the people living in the neighbourhood, one stood out above the
rest, Mme. C---- Elena Grigorievna. Strictly speaking, she did not
belong to the society there, for until lately she had always lived at
Petersburg. But being left a widow a year previously she had settled
down to live on her country estate, about ten versts from the town. She
was somewhat over thirty years of age, but in her eyes, almost
unnaturally large, there was something childlike, which gave her an
inexplicable charm. All our officers were attracted by her; but I fell
in love with her, as only twenty can fall in love.
The commander of our company was a relative of Elena Grigorievna, and we
obtained access to her house. She had become somewhat tired of being a
recluse, and liked to have visits from young folks, though she lived
almost alone. We sometimes went to dinner, and spent whole evenings
there. But she behaved with so much tact and goodness that no one could
boast of the slightest intimacy with her. Even malicious provincial
tongues could bring no gossip against her.
I was sick of love for her. What tortured me more than all was the
impossibility of frankly confessing my love. I would have done anything
in the world just to fall on my knees before Elena Grigorievna and say
aloud to her: “I love you.” Youth is a little like intoxication. For the
sake of having half an hour alone with her whom I loved, I resolved on a
desperate measure. There was much snow that winter. In the Christmas
holidays there was not a day but the wind raised the dry snow from the
ground into the air in whirling eddies. I chose an evening when the
weather was particularly bad, ordered my horse to be saddled, and set
out over the fields.
I don’t know how it was I didn’t perish by the way. Everywhere the snow
was whirling and the air was so thick with it that at two paces from me
there stood, as it were, grey walls of snow. On the road the snow was
almost up to one’s knees. Twenty times I lost my way. Twenty times my
horse refused to go further. I had a flask of cognac with me, and but
for it I should have frozen. It took me just on three hours to travel
the ten versts.
By some sort of miracle I arrived at the house. It was already late, and
I hardly succeeded in knocking up the servants. When the watchman
recognised me he exclaimed in wonder. I was all over snow, covered with
ice, and looked like a Christmas mummer. Of course I had prepared a
story to account for my appearance. My calculations were not at fault.
Elena Grigorievna was obliged to receive me and she ordered a room to be
prepared for me to stay the night.
In half an hour’s time I was seated in the dining-room, alone with her.
She pressed me to have supper, wine, tea. The logs crackled on the open
fire, the light of a hanging-lamp enclosed us in a circle which to me
seemed magical. I felt not the slightest tiredness and was more in love
than ever.
I was young, handsome, and certainly no fool. I had every right to the
notice of a woman. But Elena Grigorievna, with unusual dexterity, evaded
all talk of love. She compelled me to talk to her exactly as if we had
been at a party in the midst of many other people. She laughed at my
witticisms, but pretended not to understand any of my hints.
In spite of this, a special kind of intimacy sprang up between us,
allowing us to speak more openly. And at length, knowing that it was
nearly time to say good-night, I made up my mind. My consciousness, as
it were, reminded me that such a suitable occasion would not repeat
itself. “If you don’t take advantage of to-day,” said I to myself, “you
have only yourself to blame.” By a great effort of will, I suddenly
broke off the conversation in the middle of a word, and in a moment,
somewhat incoherently and awkwardly, I said out all that had been hidden
in my soul.
“Why are we pretending, Elena Grigorievna? You know very well why I came
to-day. I came to tell you that I love you. And now I say it to you. I
cannot but love you and I want you to love me. Drive me away and I will
humbly depart. If you don’t tell me to go I shall take it as a sign that
you love me. I don’t want anything in between. I want either your anger
or your love.”
The childlike eyes of Elena Grigorievna became cold. They looked like
crystal. I read such a clear answer in her countenance that I got up
without another word and wanted to go off straight away. But she stopped
me.
“That’s enough! Where are you going? Don’t behave like a little boy. Sit
down.”
She made me sit down near her and began to speak to me as if she had
been an elder sister talking to a wayward child.
“You are too young yet, and love is something new to you. If another
woman were in my place you would fall in love with her. In a month’s
time you would begin to love a third. But there is another kind of love
which drains the depths of the soul. Such a love I had for Sergey, my
husband, who is dead. I have given to him all I can ever feel. However
much you may speak to me of love, I shall hear you no more than if I
were dead. You must understand that I have no longer any capacity to
attach any meaning to such words. It’s just as if you spoke to someone
who could not hear you. Reconcile yourself to this. You can no more be
offended than if you were unable to make a dead woman love you.”
Elena Grigorievna spoke with a slight smile. This appeared to me to be
almost insulting. I imagined that she was laughing at me, in thus
putting forward her own love for her dead husband. I felt myself grow
pale. I remember the tears springing to my eyes.
My agitation was not unobserved by Elena Grigorievna. I saw the
expression of her cold eyes begin to change. She understood that I was
suffering. Restraining me with her hand, as she saw I wanted to get up
without replying, she drew her chair nearer mine. I felt her breath on
my face. Then lowering her voice, although we were alone in the room,
she said to me, with a real frankness and tender intimacy:
“Forgive me, if I’ve offended you. Perhaps I am mistaken about your
feeling, and it’s more serious than I thought. So I will tell you the
whole truth. Listen. My love for Sergey is not dead, but living. I love
him, not for the past, but in the present. I am not separated from him.
I take your confession to me seriously; take mine in the same way. From
the very day of his death, Sergey began to show himself to me, invisibly
but clearly. I am conscious of his nearness, I feel his breath, I hear
his caressing whisper. I answer him and I have quiet talks with him. At
times he almost openly kisses me, on my hair, my cheeks, my lips. At
times I see his reflection dimly in the half-light, in a mirror. As soon
as I am alone, he at once shows himself to me. I am accustomed to this
life with a shadow. I go on loving Sergey in this other form of his,
just as passionately and tenderly as I loved him before. I want no other
love. And I will not break faith with the man who has not left me, even
though he has passed beyond the bounds of this life. If you tell me
that I rave, that I have an hallucination, I shall answer that it makes
no difference to me what you think. I am happy in my love, why should I
refuse my happiness? Let me be happy.”
Elena Grigorievna spoke this long speech of hers gently, without raising
her voice, and with deep conviction. I was so impressed by her
earnestness that I could find no answer. I looked at her with a certain
awe and pity, as at someone whom grief had crazed. But she had become
the hostess again and spoke now in another tone, as if all she had said
previously might have been a joke:
“Well, it’s time for us to go to bed. Matthew will show you your
bedroom.”
Matthew was an old servant of the house. I mechanically kissed the hand
she held out to me. And in another minute Matthew was asking me, in a
lugubrious voice, to follow him. He led me to the other side of the
house, showed me the bed which had been prepared for me, wished me good
night, and left me.
Only then did I recover myself a little. And, isn’t it strange, my first
feeling was that of shame? I felt ashamed at having played such an
unenviable rôle. I felt ashamed to think that though I had been alone
for two hours with a young woman, in an almost empty house, I hadn’t
even got so far as to kiss her lips. At that moment I felt more malice
than love towards Elena Grigorievna and a wish to revenge myself upon
her. I had ceased to think that her mind might be unhinged, I thought
she had been making fun of me.
Sitting down on my bed, I began to think matters over. I was familiar
with the house. I knew that I was in the dead Sergey Dmitrievitch’s
study. The room next was his bedroom, where everything was left exactly
as in his lifetime. On the wall in front of me hung his portrait in
oils. He was in a black coat and was wearing the ribbon of the French
Order of the Legion of Honour, which he had received--I don’t know how
or why--in the time of the Second Empire. And by some sort of strange
connection of ideas, it was this ribbon specially which gave me the idea
of the strangest, wildest plan.
My face was not unlike that of the dead Sergey Dmitrievitch. Of course
he was older than I. But we both wore a moustache and did our hair
alike. Only his hair was grey. I went into his bedroom. The wardrobe was
unlocked. I looked for the black coat of the portrait and put it on. I
found the ribbon of the Order. I powdered my hair and my moustache. In a
word, I dressed myself up as the dead man.
Probably if my design had been successful I should be ashamed to tell
you about it. I confess that what I planned was much worse than a simple
joke. It would have been absolutely unpardonable had I not been so
young. But I received the due reward of my action.
Having finished the change of my attire, I directed my steps towards
Elena Grigorievna’s bedroom. Have you ever chanced to creep along at
night in a sleeping house? How distinct is every rustle, how terribly
loud is the creak of every floor-board in the silence! Several times it
seemed to me that I should arouse all the servants.
At length I gained the wished-for door. My heart beat. I turned the
handle.... The door opened noiselessly. I went in. The room was lighted
by a lamp, which was burning brightly. Elena Grigorievna had not yet
gone to bed. She was seated in a large armchair in her dressing-gown, in
front of a table, deep in thought, in remembrance. She had not heard me
come in.
I stood for some minutes in the half-shadow, not daring to take a step
forward. Suddenly, Elena Grigorievna, becoming conscious of my presence,
or hearing some sort of noise, turned her head. She saw me and began to
tremble. My stratagem had succeeded better than I might have expected.
She took me for her dead husband. Getting up from the armchair with a
faint cry she stretched out her arms to me. I heard her voice of joy:
“Sergey! It is you! At last!”
And then, all trembling with agitation, she sank down again, seemingly
unconscious, into her chair.
Not fully aware of what I wanted to do, I ran towards her. But the
instant I came close to the armchair I saw before me the form of another
man. This was so unexpected that I stood still, as if the rigour of
death had overtaken me. Afterwards I reflected that a large mirror must
have stood there. This other man was a perfect replica of myself. He too
wore a black coat; on his breast he too wore the ribbon of the Legion of
Honour. And in a moment I understood that this was he whose form I had
stolen, he who had come from beyond the grave to protect his wife. A
sharp terror ran through all my limbs.
For several seconds we stood facing one another by the chair in which
lay unconscious the woman for whom we were striving. I was unable to
make the slightest movement. And he, this phantom, quietly raised his
hand and made a threatening gesture towards me.
I took part afterwards in the Turkish War. I have looked on death and
have seen all that would be counted terrible. But I have never again
experienced such horror as then overcame me. This threat from the other
world stopped the beating of my heart and the flow of blood in my veins.
For a moment I almost became a corpse myself. Then without another
glance, I rushed to the door.
Holding on by the walls, staggering along, not caring how loudly my
steps resounded, I reached my own room. I had not sufficient courage to
look at the portrait hanging on the wall. I threw myself flat on the
bed, and a sort of black stupor held me fast there.
I wakened at dawn. I was still wearing the same false attire. In an
agony of shame I took it off and hung it up in its place. Dressing
myself in my own uniform, I went to find Matthew, and told him I must
leave at once. He was evidently not in the least surprised. I asked the
housemaid Glasha if her mistress were still asleep, and got the answer
that she was sleeping peacefully. This cheered me. I begged her to say
that I apologised for leaving without saying good-bye, and galloped off.
A few days later I went with some friends to visit Elena Grigorievna.
She received me with her usual courtesy. Not by a single hint did she
remind me of that night. And to this day, it is a mystery to me; did she
or did she not understand what happened?
THE “BEMOL” SHOP OF STATIONERY
From the life of “one of the least of these.”