DMITRI PETROVITCH SILIN had taken his degree and entered the
government service in Petersburg, but at thirty he gave up his post
and went in for agriculture. His farming was fairly successful, and
yet it always seemed to me that he was not in his proper place, and
that he would do well to go back to Petersburg. When sunburnt, grey
with dust, exhausted with toil, he met me near the gates or at the
entrance, and then at supper struggled with sleepiness and his wife
took him off to bed as though he were a baby; or when, overcoming
his sleepiness, he began in his soft, cordial, almost imploring
voice, to talk about his really excellent ideas, I saw him not as
a farmer nor an agriculturist, but only as a worried and exhausted
man, and it was clear to me that he did not really care for farming,
but that all he wanted was for the day to be over and "Thank God
for it."
I liked to be with him, and I used to stay on his farm for two or
three days at a time. I liked his house, and his park, and his big
fruit garden, and the river--and his philosophy, which was clear,
though rather spiritless and rhetorical. I suppose I was fond of
him on his own account, though I can't say that for certain, as I
have not up to now succeeded in analysing my feelings at that time.
He was an intelligent, kind-hearted, genuine man, and not a bore,
but I remember that when he confided to me his most treasured secrets
and spoke of our relation to each other as friendship, it disturbed
me unpleasantly, and I was conscious of awkwardness. In his affection
for me there was something inappropriate, tiresome, and I should
have greatly preferred commonplace friendly relations.
The fact is that I was extremely attracted by his wife, Marya
Sergeyevna. I was not in love with her, but I was attracted by her
face, her eyes, her voice, her walk. I missed her when I did not
see her for a long time, and my imagination pictured no one at that
time so eagerly as that young, beautiful, elegant woman. I had no
definite designs in regard to her, and did not dream of anything
of the sort, yet for some reason, whenever we were left alone, I
remembered that her husband looked upon me as his friend, and I
felt awkward. When she played my favourite pieces on the piano or
told me something interesting, I listened with pleasure, and yet
at the same time for some reason the reflection that she loved her
husband, that he was my friend, and that she herself looked upon
me as his friend, obtruded themselves upon me, my spirits flagged,
and I became listless, awkward, and dull. She noticed this change
and would usually say:
"You are dull without your friend. We must send out to the fields
for him."
And when Dmitri Petrovitch came in, she would say:
"Well, here is your friend now. Rejoice."
So passed a year and a half.
It somehow happened one July Sunday that Dmitri Petrovitch and I,
having nothing to do, drove to the big village of Klushino to buy
things for supper. While we were going from one shop to another the
sun set and the evening came on--the evening which I shall probably
never forget in my life. After buying cheese that smelt like soap,
and petrified sausages that smelt of tar, we went to the tavern to
ask whether they had any beer. Our coachman went off to the blacksmith
to get our horses shod, and we told him we would wait for him near
the church. We walked, talked, laughed over our purchases, while a
man who was known in the district by a very strange nickname, "Forty
Martyrs," followed us all the while in silence with a mysterious
air like a detective. This Forty Martyrs was no other than Gavril
Syeverov, or more simply Gavryushka, who had been for a short time
in my service as a footman and had been dismissed by me for
drunkenness. He had been in Dmitri Petrovitch's service, too, and
by him had been dismissed for the same vice. He was an inveterate
drunkard, and indeed his whole life was as drunk and disorderly as
himself. His father had been a priest and his mother of noble rank,
so by birth he belonged to the privileged class; but however carefully
I scrutinized his exhausted, respectful, and always perspiring face,
his red beard now turning grey, his pitifully torn reefer jacket
and his red shirt, I could not discover in him the faintest trace
of anything we associate with privilege. He spoke of himself as a
man of education, and used to say that he had been in a clerical
school, but had not finished his studies there, as he had been
expelled for smoking; then he had sung in the bishop's choir and
lived for two years in a monastery, from which he was also expelled,
but this time not for smoking but for "his weakness." He had walked
all over two provinces, had presented petitions to the Consistory,
and to various government offices, and had been four times on his
trial. At last, being stranded in our district, he had served as a
footman, as a forester, as a kennelman, as a sexton, had married a
cook who was a widow and rather a loose character, and had so
hopelessly sunk into a menial position, and had grown so used to
filth and dirt, that he even spoke of his privileged origin with a
certain scepticism, as of some myth. At the time I am describing,
he was hanging about without a job, calling himself a carrier and
a huntsman, and his wife had disappeared and made no sign.
From the tavern we went to the church and sat in the porch, waiting
for the coachman. Forty Martyrs stood a little way off and put his
hand before his mouth in order to cough in it respectfully if need
be. By now it was dark; there was a strong smell of evening dampness,
and the moon was on the point of rising. There were only two clouds
in the clear starry sky exactly over our heads: one big one and one
smaller; alone in the sky they were racing after one another like
mother and child, in the direction where the sunset was glowing.
"What a glorious day!" said Dmitri Petrovitch.
"In the extreme . . ." Forty Martyrs assented, and he coughed
respectfully into his hand. "How was it, Dmitri Petrovitch, you
thought to visit these parts?" he asked in an ingratiating voice,
evidently anxious to get up a conversation.
Dmitri Petrovitch made no answer. Forty Martyrs heaved a deep sigh
and said softly, not looking at us:
"I suffer solely through a cause to which I must answer to Almighty
God. No doubt about it, I am a hopeless and incompetent man; but
believe me, on my conscience, I am without a crust of bread and
worse off than a dog. . . . Forgive me, Dmitri Petrovitch."
Silin was not listening, but sat musing with his head propped on
his fists. The church stood at the end of the street on the high
river-bank, and through the trellis gate of the enclosure we could
see the river, the water-meadows on the near side of it, and the
crimson glare of a camp fire about which black figures of men and
horses were moving. And beyond the fire, further away, there were
other lights, where there was a little village. They were singing
there. On the river, and here and there on the meadows, a mist was
rising. High narrow coils of mist, thick and white as milk, were
trailing over the river, hiding the reflection of the stars and
hovering over the willows. Every minute they changed their form,
and it seemed as though some were embracing, others were bowing,
others lifting up their arms to heaven with wide sleeves like
priests, as though they were praying. . . . Probably they reminded
Dmitri Petrovitch of ghosts and of the dead, for he turned facing
me and asked with a mournful smile:
"Tell me, my dear fellow, why is it that when we want to tell some
terrible, mysterious, and fantastic story, we draw our material,
not from life, but invariably from the world of ghosts and of the
shadows beyond the grave."
"We are frightened of what we don't understand."
"And do you understand life? Tell me: do you understand life better
than the world beyond the grave?"
Dmitri Petrovitch was sitting quite close to me, so that I felt his
breath upon my cheek. In the evening twilight his pale, lean face
seemed paler than ever and his dark beard was black as soot. His
eyes were sad, truthful, and a little frightened, as though he were
about to tell me something horrible. He looked into my eyes and
went on in his habitual imploring voice:
"Our life and the life beyond the grave are equally incomprehensible
and horrible. If any one is afraid of ghosts he ought to be afraid,
too, of me, and of those lights and of the sky, seeing that, if you
come to reflect, all that is no less fantastic and beyond our grasp
than apparitions from the other world. Prince Hamlet did not kill
himself because he was afraid of the visions that might haunt his
dreams after death. I like that famous soliloquy of his, but, to
be candid, it never touched my soul. I will confess to you as a
friend that in moments of depression I have sometimes pictured to
myself the hour of my death. My fancy invented thousands of the
gloomiest visions, and I have succeeded in working myself up to an
agonizing exaltation, to a state of nightmare, and I assure you
that that did not seem to me more terrible than reality. What I
mean is, apparitions are terrible, but life is terrible, too. I
don't understand life and I am afraid of it, my dear boy; I don't
know. Perhaps I am a morbid person, unhinged. It seems to a sound,
healthy man that he understands everything he sees and hears, but
that 'seeming' is lost to me, and from day to day I am poisoning
myself with terror. There is a disease, the fear of open spaces,
but my disease is the fear of life. When I lie on the grass and
watch a little beetle which was born yesterday and understands
nothing, it seems to me that its life consists of nothing else but
fear, and in it I see myself."
"What is it exactly you are frightened of?" I asked.
"I am afraid of everything. I am not by nature a profound thinker,
and I take little interest in such questions as the life beyond the
grave, the destiny of humanity, and, in fact, I am rarely carried
away to the heights. What chiefly frightens me is the common routine
of life from which none of us can escape. I am incapable of
distinguishing what is true and what is false in my actions, and
they worry me. I recognize that education and the conditions of
life have imprisoned me in a narrow circle of falsity, that my whole
life is nothing else than a daily effort to deceive myself and other
people, and to avoid noticing it; and I am frightened at the thought
that to the day of my death I shall not escape from this falsity.
To-day I do something and to-morrow I do not understand why I did
it. I entered the service in Petersburg and took fright; I came
here to work on the land, and here, too, I am frightened. . . . I
see that we know very little and so make mistakes every day. We are
unjust, we slander one another and spoil each other's lives, we
waste all our powers on trash which we do not need and which hinders
us from living; and that frightens me, because I don't understand
why and for whom it is necessary. I don't understand men, my dear
fellow, and I am afraid of them. It frightens me to look at the
peasants, and I don't know for what higher objects they are suffering
and what they are living for. If life is an enjoyment, then they
are unnecessary, superfluous people; if the object and meaning of
life is to be found in poverty and unending, hopeless ignorance, I
can't understand for whom and what this torture is necessary. I
understand no one and nothing. Kindly try to understand this specimen,
for instance," said Dmitri Petrovitch, pointing to Forty Martyrs.
"Think of him!"
Noticing that we were looking at him, Forty Martyrs coughed
deferentially into his fist and said:
"I was always a faithful servant with good masters, but the great
trouble has been spirituous liquor. If a poor fellow like me were
shown consideration and given a place, I would kiss the ikon. My
word's my bond."
The sexton walked by, looked at us in amazement, and began pulling
the rope. The bell, abruptly breaking upon the stillness of the
evening, struck ten with a slow and prolonged note.
"It's ten o'clock, though," said Dmitri Petrovitch. "It's time we
were going. Yes, my dear fellow," he sighed, "if only you knew how
afraid I am of my ordinary everyday thoughts, in which one would
have thought there should be nothing dreadful. To prevent myself
thinking I distract my mind with work and try to tire myself out
that I may sleep sound at night. Children, a wife--all that seems
ordinary with other people; but how that weighs upon me, my dear
fellow!"
He rubbed his face with his hands, cleared his throat, and laughed.
"If I could only tell you how I have played the fool in my life!"
he said. "They all tell me that I have a sweet wife, charming
children, and that I am a good husband and father. They think I am
very happy and envy me. But since it has come to that, I will tell
you in secret: my happy family life is only a grievous misunderstanding,
and I am afraid of it." His pale face was distorted by a wry smile.
He put his arm round my waist and went on in an undertone:
"You are my true friend; I believe in you and have a deep respect
for you. Heaven gave us friendship that we may open our hearts and
escape from the secrets that weigh upon us. Let me take advantage
of your friendly feeling for me and tell you the whole truth. My
home life, which seems to you so enchanting, is my chief misery and
my chief terror. I got married in a strange and stupid way. I must
tell you that I was madly in love with Masha before I married her,
and was courting her for two years. I asked her to marry me five
times, and she refused me because she did not care for me in the
least. The sixth, when burning with passion I crawled on my knees
before her and implored her to take a beggar and marry me, she
consented. . . . What she said to me was: 'I don't love you, but I
will be true to you. . . .' I accepted that condition with rapture.
At the time I understood what that meant, but I swear to God I don't
understand it now. 'I don't love you, but I will be true to you.'
What does that mean? It's a fog, a darkness. I love her now as
intensely as I did the day we were married, while she, I believe,
is as indifferent as ever, and I believe she is glad when I go away
from home. I don't know for certain whether she cares for me or not
--I don't know, I don't know; but, as you see, we live under the
same roof, call each other 'thou,' sleep together, have children,
our property is in common. . . . What does it mean, what does it
mean? What is the object of it? And do you understand it at all,
my dear fellow? It's cruel torture! Because I don't understand our
relations, I hate, sometimes her, sometimes myself, sometimes both
at once. Everything is in a tangle in my brain; I torment myself
and grow stupid. And as though to spite me, she grows more beautiful
every day, she is getting more wonderful. . . I fancy her hair is
marvellous, and her smile is like no other woman's. I love her, and
I know that my love is hopeless. Hopeless love for a woman by whom
one has two children! Is that intelligible? And isn't it terrible?
Isn't it more terrible than ghosts?"
He was in the mood to have talked on a good deal longer, but luckily
we heard the coachman's voice. Our horses had arrived. We got into
the carriage, and Forty Martyrs, taking off his cap, helped us both
into the carriage with an expression that suggested that he had
long been waiting for an opportunity to come in contact with our
precious persons.
"Dmitri Petrovitch, let me come to you," he said, blinking furiously
and tilting his head on one side. "Show divine mercy! I am dying
of hunger!"
"Very well," said Silin. "Come, you shall stay three days, and then
we shall see."
"Certainly, sir," said Forty Martyrs, overjoyed. "I'll come today,
sir."
It was a five miles' drive home. Dmitri Petrovitch, glad that he
had at last opened his heart to his friend, kept his arm round my
waist all the way; and speaking now, not with bitterness and not
with apprehension, but quite cheerfully, told me that if everything
had been satisfactory in his home life, he should have returned to
Petersburg and taken up scientific work there. The movement which
had driven so many gifted young men into the country was, he said,
a deplorable movement. We had plenty of rye and wheat in Russia,
but absolutely no cultured people. The strong and gifted among the
young ought to take up science, art, and politics; to act otherwise
meant being wasteful. He generalized with pleasure and expressed
regret that he would be parting from me early next morning, as he
had to go to a sale of timber.
And I felt awkward and depressed, and it seemed to me that I was
deceiving the man. And at the same time it was pleasant to me. I
gazed at the immense crimson moon which was rising, and pictured
the tall, graceful, fair woman, with her pale face, always well-dressed
and fragrant with some special scent, rather like musk, and for
some reason it pleased me to think she did not love her husband.
On reaching home, we sat down to supper. Marya Sergeyevna, laughing,
regaled us with our purchases, and I thought that she certainly had
wonderful hair and that her smile was unlike any other woman's. I
watched her, and I wanted to detect in every look and movement that
she did not love her husband, and I fancied that I did see it.
Dmitri Petrovitch was soon struggling with sleep. After supper he
sat with us for ten minutes and said:
"Do as you please, my friends, but I have to be up at three o'clock
tomorrow morning. Excuse my leaving you."
He kissed his wife tenderly, pressed my hand with warmth and
gratitude, and made me promise that I would certainly come the
following week. That he might not oversleep next morning, he went
to spend the night in the lodge.
Marya Sergeyevna always sat up late, in the Petersburg fashion, and
for some reason on this occasion I was glad of it.
"And now," I began when we were left alone, "and now you'll be kind
and play me something."
I felt no desire for music, but I did not know how to begin the
conversation. She sat down to the piano and played, I don't remember
what. I sat down beside her and looked at her plump white hands and
tried to read something on her cold, indifferent face. Then she
smiled at something and looked at me.
"You are dull without your friend," she said.