I
It was quiet and tranquil, and neither joyous nor sad. There was an
electric light in the room. The walls seemed impregnable. The window
was overhung by heavy, dark-green draperies, even denser in tone than
the green of the wall-paper. Both doors—the large one at the side, and
the small one in the depth of the alcove that faced the window—were
securely bolted. And there, behind them, reigned darkness and
desolation in the broad corridor as well as in the spacious and cold
reception-room, where melancholy plants yearned for their native soil.
Gurov was lying on the divan. A book was in his hands. He often paused
in his reading. He meditated and mused during these pauses, and it was
always about the same thing. Always about _them_.
They hovered near him. This he had noticed long ago. They were hiding.
Their manner; was importunate. They rustled very quietly. For a long
time they remained invisible to the eye. But one day, when Gurov awoke
rather tired; sad and pale, and languidly turned on the electric light
to dissipate the greyish gloom of an early winter morning—he espied one
of them suddenly.
Small, grey, shifty and nimble, _he_ flashed by, and in the twinkling
of an eye disappeared.
And thereafter, in the morning, or in the evening, Gurov grew used to
seeing these small, shifty, house sprites run past him. This time he
did not doubt that they would appear.
To begin with he felt a slight headache, afterwards a sudden flash of
heat, then of cold. Then, out of the corner, there emerged the long,
slender Fever with her ugly, yellow face and her bony dry hands; she
lay down at his side, and embraced him, and fell to kissing him and to
laughing. And these rapid kisses of the affectionate and cunning Fever,
and these slow approaches of the slight headache were agreeable.
Feebleness spread itself over, the whole body, and lassitude also. This
too was agreeable. It made him feel as though all the turmoil of life
had receded into the distance. And people also became far away,
unimportant, even unnecessary. He preferred to be with these quiet
ones, these house sprites.
Gurov had not been out for some days. He had locked himself in at home.
He did not permit any one to come to him. He was alone. He thought
about them. He awaited them.