‘Listen to what I am going to tell you,’ she began. ‘You are not a little
boy now; you ought to know all. I had a friend, a girl.... She married a
man she loved with all her heart, and she was very happy with her husband.
During the first year of their married life they went together to the
capital to spend a few weeks there and enjoy themselves. They stayed at a
good hotel, and went out a great deal to theatres and parties. My friend
was very pretty--every one noticed her, young men paid her attentions,--but
there was among them one ... an officer. He followed her about incessantly,
and wherever she was, she always saw his cruel black eyes. He was not
introduced to her, and never once spoke to her--only perpetually stared at
her--so insolently and strangely. All the pleasures of the capital were
poisoned by his presence. She began persuading her husband to hasten their
departure--and they had already made all the preparations for the journey.
One evening her husband went out to a club--he had been invited by the
officers of the same regiment as that officer--to play cards.... She was
for the very first time left alone. Her husband did not return for a long
while. She dismissed her maid, and went to bed.... And suddenly she felt
overcome by terror, so that she was quite cold and shivering. She fancied
she heard a slight sound on the other side of the wall, like a dog
scratching, and she began watching the wall. In the corner a lamp was
burning; the room was all hung with tapestry.... Suddenly something stirred
there, rose, opened.... And straight out of the wall a black, long figure
came, that awful man with the cruel eyes! She tried to scream, but could
not. She was utterly numb with terror. He went up to her rapidly, like some
beast of prey, flung something on her head, something strong-smelling,
heavy, white.... What happened then I don’t remember I ... don’t remember!
It was like death, like a murder.... When at last that fearful darkness
began to pass away--when I ... when my friend came to herself, there was no
one in the room. Again, and for a long time, she had not the strength to
scream, she screamed at last ... then again everything was confusion....
Then she saw her husband by her side: he had been kept at the club till two
o’clock at night.... He looked scared and white. He began questioning her,
but she told him nothing.... Then she swooned away again. I remember though
when she was left alone in the room, she examined the place in the wall....
Under the tapestry hangings it turned out there was a secret door. And her
betrothal ring had gone from off her hand. This ring was of an unusual
pattern; seven little gold stars alternated on it with seven silver stars;
it was an old family heirloom. Her husband asked her what had become of the
ring; she could give him no answer. Her husband supposed she had dropped
it somewhere, searched everywhere, but could not find it. He felt uneasy
and distressed; he decided to go home as soon as possible and directly the
doctor allowed it--they left the capital.... But imagine! On the very day
of their departure they happened suddenly to meet a stretcher being carried
along the street.... On the stretcher lay a man who had just been killed,
with his head cut open; and imagine! the man was that fearful apparition
of the night with the evil eyes.... He had been killed over some gambling
dispute!
Then my friend went away into the country ... became a mother for the first
time ... and lived several years with her husband. He never knew anything;
indeed, what could she have told him?--she knew nothing herself.
But her former happiness had vanished. A gloom had come over their lives,
and never again did that gloom pass out of it.... They had no other
children, either before or after ... and that son....’
My mother trembled all over and hid her face in her hands.
‘But say now,’ she went on with redoubled energy, ‘was my friend to blame
in any way? What had she to reproach herself with? She was punished, but
had she not the right to declare before God Himself that the punishment
that overtook her was unjust? Then why is it, that like a criminal,
tortured by stings of conscience, why is it she is confronted with the past
in such a fearful shape after so many years? Macbeth slew Bancho--so no
wonder that he could be haunted ... but I....’
But here my mother’s words became so mixed and confused, that I ceased to
follow her.... I no longer doubted that she was in delirium.
X
The agitating effect of my mother’s recital on me--any one may easily
conceive! I guessed from her first word that she was talking of herself,
and not any friend of hers. Her slip of the tongue confirmed my conjecture.
Then this really was my father, whom I was seeking in my dream, whom I had
seen awake by daylight! He had not been killed, as my mother supposed, but
only wounded. And he had come to see her, and had run away, alarmed by
her alarm. I suddenly understood everything: the feeling of involuntary
aversion for me, which arose at times in my mother, and her perpetual
melancholy, and our secluded life.... I remember my head seemed going
round, and I clutched it in both hands as though to hold it still. But one
idea, as it were, nailed me down; I resolved I must, come what may, find
that man again? What for? with what aim? I could not give myself a clear
answer, but to find him ... find him--that had become a question of life
and death for me! The next morning my mother, at last, grew calmer ...
the fever left her ... she fell asleep. Confiding her to the care of the
servants and people of the house, I set out on my quest.