of each separate case." One has but to obey this advice to gain the
conviction that the methods recommended in the textbooks as the best and
as providing a safe basis for treatment turn out to be quite unsuitable
in individual cases. It is just the same in moral ailments.
But I must make some answer, and I say:
"You have too much free time, my dear; you absolutely must take up some
occupation. After all, why shouldn't you be an actress again if it is
your vocation?"
"I cannot!"
"Your tone and manner suggest that you are a victim. I don't like that,
my dear; it is your own fault. Remember, you began with falling out with
people and methods, but you have done nothing to make either better. You
did not struggle with evil, but were cast down by it, and you are not
the victim of the struggle, but of your own impotence. Well, of course
you were young and inexperienced then; now it may all be different. Yes,
really, go on the stage. You will work, you will serve a sacred art."
"Don't pretend, Nikolay Stepanovitch," Katya interrupts me. "Let us make
a compact once for all; we will talk about actors, actresses, and
authors, but we will let art alone. You are a splendid and rare person,
but you don't know enough about art sincerely to think it sacred. You
have no instinct or feeling for art. You have been hard at work all your
life, and have not had time to acquire that feeling. Altogether... I
don't like talk about art," she goes on nervously. "I don't like it!
And, my goodness, how they have vulgarized it!"
"Who has vulgarized it?"
"They have vulgarized it by drunkenness, the newspapers by their
familiar attitude, clever people by philosophy."
"Philosophy has nothing to do with it."
"Yes, it has. If any one philosophizes about it, it shows he does not
understand it."
To avoid bitterness I hasten to change the subject, and then sit a long
time silent. Only when we are driving out of the wood and turning
towards Katya's villa I go back to my former question, and say:
"You have still not answered me, why you don't want to go on the stage."
"Nikolay Stepanovitch, this is cruel!" she cries, and suddenly flushes
all over. "You want me to tell you the truth aloud? Very well, if... if
you like it! I have no talent! No talent and... and a great deal of
vanity! So there!"
After making this confession she turns her face away from me, and to
hide the trembling of her hands tugs violently at the reins.
As we are driving towards her villa we see Mihail Fyodorovitch walking
near the gate, impatiently awaiting us.
"That Mihail Fyodorovitch again!" says Katya with vexation. "Do rid me
of him, please! I am sick and tired of him... bother him!"
Mihail Fyodorovitch ought to have gone abroad long ago, but he puts off
going from week to week. Of late there have been certain changes in him.
He looks, as it were, sunken, has taken to drinking until he is tipsy, a
thing which never used to happen to him, and his black eyebrows are
beginning to turn grey. When our chaise stops at the gate he does not
conceal his joy and his impatience. He fussily helps me and Katya out,
hurriedly asks questions, laughs, rubs his hands, and that gentle,
imploring, pure expression, which I used to notice only in his eyes, is
now suffused all over his face. He is glad and at the same time he is
ashamed of his gladness, ashamed of his habit of spending every evening
with Katya. And he thinks it necessary to explain his visit by some
obvious absurdity such as: "I was driving by, and I thought I would just
look in for a minute."
We all three go indoors; first we drink tea, then the familiar packs of
cards, the big piece of cheese, the fruit, and the bottle of Crimean
champagne are put upon the table. The subjects of our conversation are
not new; they are just the same as in the winter. We fall foul of the
University, the students, and literature and the theatre; the air grows
thick and stifling with evil speaking, and poisoned by the breath, not
of two toads as in the winter, but of three. Besides the velvety
baritone laugh and the giggle like the gasp of a concertina, the maid
who waits upon us hears an unpleasant cracked "He, he!" like the chuckle
of a general in a vaudeville.
V
There are terrible nights with thunder, lightning, rain, and wind, such
as are called among the people "sparrow nights." There has been one such
night in my personal life.
I woke up after midnight and leaped suddenly out of bed. It seemed to me
for some reason that I was just immediately going to die. Why did it
seem so? I had no sensation in my body that suggested my immediate
death, but my soul was oppressed with terror, as though I had suddenly
seen a vast menacing glow of fire.
I rapidly struck a light, drank some water straight out of the decanter,
then hurried to the open window. The weather outside was magnificent.
There was a smell of hay and some other very sweet scent. I could see
the spikes of the fence, the gaunt, drowsy trees by the window, the
road, the dark streak of woodland, there was a serene, very bright moon
in the sky and not a single cloud, perfect stillness, not one leaf
stirring. I felt that everything was looking at me and waiting for me to
die....
It was uncanny. I closed the window and ran to my bed. I felt for my
pulse, and not finding it in my wrist, tried to find it in my temple,
then in my chin, and again in my wrist, and everything I touched was
cold and clammy with sweat. My breathing came more and more rapidly, my
body was shivering, all my inside was in commotion; I had a sensation on
my face and on my bald head as though they were covered with spiders'
webs.
What should I do? Call my family? No; it would be no use. I could not
imagine what my wife and Liza would do when they came in to me.
I hid my head under the pillow, closed my eyes, and waited and
waited.... My spine was cold; it seemed to be drawn inwards, and I felt
as though death were coming upon me stealthily from behind.
"Kee-vee! kee-vee!" I heard a sudden shriek in the night's stillness,
and did not know where it was--in my breast or in the street--"Kee-vee!
kee-vee!"
"My God, how terrible!" I would have drunk some more water, but by then
it was fearful to open my eyes and I was afraid to raise my head. I was
possessed by unaccountable animal terror, and I cannot understand why I
was so frightened: was it that I wanted to live, or that some new
unknown pain was in store for me?
Upstairs, overhead, some one moaned or laughed. I listened. Soon
afterwards there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. Some one came
hurriedly down, then went up again. A minute later there was a sound of
steps downstairs again; some one stopped near my door and listened.
"Who is there?" I cried.
The door opened. I boldly opened my eyes, and saw my wife. Her face was
pale and her eyes were tear-stained.
"You are not asleep, Nikolay Stepanovitch?" she asked.
"What is it?"
"For God's sake, go up and have a look at Liza; there is something the
matter with her...."
"Very good, with pleasure," I muttered, greatly relieved at not being
alone. "Very good, this minute...."
I followed my wife, heard what she said to me, and was too agitated to
understand a word. Patches of light from her candle danced about the
stairs, our long shadows trembled. My feet caught in the skirts of my
dressing-gown; I gasped for breath, and felt as though something were
pursuing me and trying to catch me from behind.
"I shall die on the spot, here on the staircase," I thought. "On the
spot...." But we passed the staircase, the dark corridor with the
Italian windows, and went into Liza's room. She was sitting on the bed
in her nightdress, with her bare feet hanging down, and she was moaning.
"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" she was muttering, screwing up her eyes at our
candle. "I can't bear it."
"Liza, my child," I said, "what is it?"
Seeing me, she began crying out, and flung herself on my neck.
"My kind papa!..." she sobbed--"my dear, good papa... my darling, my pet,
I don't know what is the matter with me.... I am miserable!"
She hugged me, kissed me, and babbled fond words I used to hear from her
when she was a child.
"Calm yourself, my child. God be with you," I said. "There is no need to
cry. I am miserable, too."
I tried to tuck her in; my wife gave her water, and we awkwardly
stumbled by her bedside; my shoulder jostled against her shoulder, and
meanwhile I was thinking how we used to give our children their bath
together.
"Help her! help her!" my wife implored me. "Do something!"
What could I do? I could do nothing. There was some load on the girl's
heart; but I did not understand, I knew nothing about it, and could only
mutter:
"It's nothing, it's nothing; it will pass. Sleep, sleep!"
To make things worse, there was a sudden sound of dogs howling, at first
subdued and uncertain, then loud, two dogs howling together. I had never
attached significance to such omens as the howling of dogs or the
shrieking of owls, but on that occasion it sent a pang to my heart, and
I hastened to explain the howl to myself.
"It's nonsense," I thought, "the influence of one organism on another.
The intensely strained condition of my nerves has infected my wife,
Liza, the dog--that is all.... Such infection explains presentiments,
forebodings...."
When a little later I went back to my room to write a prescription for
Liza, I no longer thought I should die at once, but only had such a
weight, such a feeling of oppression in my soul that I felt actually
sorry that I had not died on the spot. For a long time I stood
motionless in the middle of the room, pondering what to prescribe for
Liza. But the moans overhead ceased, and I decided to prescribe nothing,
and yet I went on standing there....
There was a deathlike stillness, such a stillness, as some author has
expressed it, "it rang in one's ears." Time passed slowly; the streaks
of moonlight on the window-sill did not shift their position, but seemed
as though frozen.... It was still some time before dawn.
But the gate in the fence creaked, some one stole in and, breaking a
twig from one of those scraggy trees, cautiously tapped on the window
with it.
"Nikolay Stepanovitch," I heard a whisper. "Nikolay Stepanovitch."
I opened the window, and fancied I was dreaming: under the window,
huddled against the wall, stood a woman in a black dress, with the
moonlight bright upon her, looking at me with great eyes. Her face was
pale, stern, and weird-looking in the moonlight, like marble, her chin
was quivering.
"It is I," she said--"I... Katya."
In the moonlight all women's eyes look big and black, all people look
taller and paler, and that was probably why I had not recognized her for
the first minute.
"What is it?"
"Forgive me!" she said. "I suddenly felt unbearably miserable... I
couldn't stand it, so came here. There was a light in your window and...
and I ventured to knock.... I beg your pardon. Ah! if you knew how
miserable I am! What are you doing just now?"
"Nothing.... I can't sleep."
"I had a feeling that there was something wrong, but that is nonsense."
Her brows were lifted, her eyes shone with tears, and her whole face was
lighted up with the familiar look of trustfulness which I had not seen
for so long.
"Nikolay Stepanovitch," she said imploringly, stretching out both hands
to me, "my precious friend, I beg you, I implore you.... If you don't
despise my affection and respect for you, consent to what I ask of you."
"What is it?"
"Take my money from me!"
"Come! what an idea! What do I want with your money?"
"You'll go away somewhere for your health.... You ought to go for your
health. Will you take it? Yes? Nikolay Stepanovitch darling, yes?"
She looked greedily into my face and repeated: "Yes, you will take it?"
"No, my dear, I won't take it," I said. "Thank you."
She turned her back upon me and bowed her head. Probably I refused her
in a tone which made further conversation about money impossible.
"Go home to bed," I said. "We will see each other tomorrow."
"So you don't consider me your friend?" she asked dejectedly.
"I don't say that. But your money would be no use to me now."
"I beg your pardon..." she said, dropping her voice a whole octave. "I
understand you... to be indebted to a person like me... a retired
actress.... But, good-bye...."
And she went away so quickly that I had not time even to say good-bye.
VI
I am in Harkov.
As it would be useless to contend against my present mood and, indeed,
beyond my power, I have made up my mind that the last days of my life
shall at least be irreproachable externally. If I am unjust in regard to
my wife and daughter, which I fully recognize, I will try and do as she
wishes; since she wants me to go to Harkov, I go to Harkov. Besides, I
have become of late so indifferent to everything that it is really all
the same to me where I go, to Harkov, or to Paris, or to Berditchev.
I arrived here at midday, and have put up at the hotel not far from the
cathedral. The train was jolting, there were draughts, and now I am
sitting on my bed, holding my head and expecting tic douloureux. I ought
to have gone today to see some professors of my acquaintance, but I have
neither strength nor inclination.
The old corridor attendant comes in and asks whether I have brought my
bed-linen. I detain him for five minutes, and put several questions to
him about Gnekker, on whose account I have come here. The attendant
turns out to be a native of Harkov; he knows the town like the fingers
of his hand, but does not remember any household of the surname of
Gnekker. I question him about the estate--the same answer.
The clock in the corridor strikes one, then two, then three.... These
last months in which I am waiting for death seem much longer than the
whole of my life. And I have never before been so ready to resign myself
to the slowness of time as now. In the old days, when one sat in the
station and waited for a train, or presided in an examination-room, a
quarter of an hour would seem an eternity. Now I can sit all night on my
bed without moving, and quite unconcernedly reflect that tomorrow will
be followed by another night as long and colourless, and the day after
tomorrow.
In the corridor it strikes five, six, seven.... It grows dark.
There is a dull pain in my cheek, the tic beginning. To occupy myself
with thoughts, I go back to my old point of view, when I was not so
indifferent, and ask myself why I, a distinguished man, a privy
councillor, am sitting in this little hotel room, on this bed with the
unfamiliar grey quilt. Why am I looking at that cheap tin washing-stand
and listening to the whirr of the wretched clock in the corridor? Is all
this in keeping with my fame and my lofty position? And I answer these
questions with a jeer. I am amused by the naivete with which I used in
my youth to exaggerate the value of renown and of the exceptional
position which celebrities are supposed to enjoy. I am famous, my name
is pronounced with reverence, my portrait has been both in the Niva and
in the Illustrated News of the World; I have read my biography even in a
German magazine. And what of all that? Here I am sitting utterly alone
in a strange town, on a strange bed, rubbing my aching cheek with my
hand.... Domestic worries, the hard-heartedness of creditors, the
rudeness of the railway servants, the inconveniences of the passport
system, the expensive and unwholesome food in the refreshment-rooms, the
general rudeness and coarseness in social intercourse--all this, and a
great deal more which would take too long to reckon up, affects me as
much as any working man who is famous only in his alley. In what way,
does my exceptional position find expression? Admitting that I am
celebrated a thousand times over, that I am a hero of whom my country is
proud. They publish bulletins of my illness in every paper, letters of
sympathy come to me by post from my colleagues, my pupils, the general
public; but all that does not prevent me from dying in a strange bed, in
misery, in utter loneliness. Of course, no one is to blame for that; but
I in my foolishness dislike my popularity. I feel as though it had
cheated me.
At ten o'clock I fall asleep, and in spite of the tic I sleep soundly,
and should have gone on sleeping if I had not been awakened. Soon after
one came a sudden knock at the door.
"Who is there?"
"A telegram."
"You might have waited till tomorrow," I say angrily, taking the
telegram from the attendant. "Now I shall not get to sleep again."
"I am sorry. Your light was burning, so I thought you were not asleep."
I tear open the telegram and look first at the signature. From my wife.
"What does she want?"
"Gnekker was secretly married to Liza yesterday. Return."
I read the telegram, and my dismay does not last long. I am dismayed,
not by what Liza and Gnekker have done, but by the indifference with
which I hear of their marriage. They say philosophers and the truly wise
are indifferent. It is false: indifference is the paralysis of the soul;
it is premature death.
I go to bed again, and begin trying to think of something to occupy my
mind. What am I to think about? I feel as though everything had been
thought over already and there is nothing which could hold my attention
now.
When daylight comes I sit up in bed with my arms round my knees, and to
pass the time I try to know myself. "Know thyself" is excellent and
useful advice; it is only a pity that the ancients never thought to
indicate the means of following this precept.
When I have wanted to understand somebody or myself I have considered,
not the actions, in which everything is relative, but the desires.
"Tell me what you want, and I will tell you what manner of man you are."
And now I examine myself: what do I want?
I want our wives, our children, our friends, our pupils, to love in us,
not our fame, not the brand and not the label, but to love us as
ordinary men. Anything else? I should like to have had helpers and
successors. Anything else? I should like to wake up in a hundred years'
time and to have just a peep out of one eye at what is happening in
science. I should have liked to have lived another ten years... What
further? Why, nothing further. I think and think, and can think of
nothing more. And however much I might think, and however far my
thoughts might travel, it is clear to me that there is nothing vital,
nothing of great importance in my desires. In my passion for science, in
my desire to live, in this sitting on a strange bed, and in this
striving to know myself--in all the thoughts, feelings, and ideas I form
about everything, there is no common bond to connect it all into one
whole. Every feeling and every thought exists apart in me; and in all my
criticisms of science, the theatre, literature, my pupils, and in all
the pictures my imagination draws, even the most skilful analyst could
not find what is called a general idea, or the god of a living man.
And if there is not that, then there is nothing.
In a state so poverty-stricken, a serious ailment, the fear of death,
the influences of circumstance and men were enough to turn upside down
and scatter in fragments all which I had once looked upon as my theory
of life, and in which I had seen the meaning and joy of my existence. So
there is nothing surprising in the fact that I have over-shadowed the
last months of my life with thoughts and feelings only worthy of a slave
and barbarian, and that now I am indifferent and take no heed of the
dawn. When a man has not in him what is loftier and mightier than all
external impressions a bad cold is really enough to upset his
equilibrium and make him begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a
dog howling in every sound. And all his pessimism or optimism with his
thoughts great and small have at such times significance as symptoms and
nothing more.
I am vanquished. If it is so, it is useless to think, it is useless to
talk. I will sit and wait in silence for what is to come.
In the morning the corridor attendant brings me tea and a copy of the
local newspaper. Mechanically I read the advertisements on the first
page, the leading article, the extracts from the newspapers and
journals, the chronicle of events.... In the latter I find, among other
things, the following paragraph: "Our distinguished savant, Professor
Nikolay Stepanovitch So-and-so, arrived yesterday in Harkov, and is
staying in the So-and-so Hotel."
Apparently, illustrious names are created to live on their own account,
apart from those that bear them. Now my name is promenading tranquilly
about Harkov; in another three months, printed in gold letters on my
monument, it will shine bright as the sun itself, while I shall be
already under the moss.
A light tap at the door. Somebody wants me.
"Who is there? Come in."
The door opens, and I step back surprised and hurriedly wrap my
dressing-gown round me. Before me stands Katya.
"How do you do?" she says, breathless with running upstairs. "You didn't
expect me? I have come here, too.... I have come, too!"
She sits down and goes on, hesitating and not looking at me.
"Why don't you speak to me? I have come, too... today.... I found out
that you were in this hotel, and have come to you."
"Very glad to see you," I say, shrugging my shoulders, "but I am
surprised. You seem to have dropped from the skies. What have you come
for?"
"Oh... I've simply come."
Silence. Suddenly she jumps up impulsively and comes to me.
"Nikolay Stepanovitch," she says, turning pale and pressing her hands on
her bosom--"Nikolay Stepanovitch, I cannot go on living like this! I
cannot! For God's sake tell me quickly, this minute, what I am to do!
Tell me, what am I to do?"
"What can I tell you?" I ask in perplexity. "I can do nothing."
"Tell me, I beseech you," she goes on, breathing hard and trembling all
over. "I swear that I cannot go on living like this. It's too much for
me!"
She sinks on a chair and begins sobbing. She flings her head back,
wrings her hands, taps with her feet; her hat falls off and hangs
bobbing on its elastic; her hair is ruffled.
"Help me! help me!" she implores me. "I cannot go on!"
She takes her handkerchief out of her travelling-bag, and with it pulls
out several letters, which fall from her lap to the floor. I pick them
up, and on one of them I recognize the handwriting of Mihail
Fyodorovitch and accidentally read a bit of a word "passionat..."
"There is nothing I can tell you, Katya," I say.
"Help me!" she sobs, clutching at my hand and kissing it. "You are my
father, you know, my only friend! You are clever, educated; you have
lived so long; you have been a teacher! Tell me, what am I to do?"
"Upon my word, Katya, I don't know...."
I am utterly at a loss and confused, touched by her sobs, and hardly
able to stand.
"Let us have lunch, Katya," I say, with a forced smile. "Give over
crying."
And at once I add in a sinking voice:
"I shall soon be gone, Katya...."
"Only one word, only one word!" she weeps, stretching out her hands to
me.
"What am I to do?"
"You are a queer girl, really..." I mutter. "I don't understand it! So
sensible, and all at once crying your eyes out...."
A silence follows. Katya straightens her hair, puts on her hat, then
crumples up the letters and stuffs them in her bag--and all this
deliberately, in silence. Her face, her bosom, and her gloves are wet
with tears, but her expression now is cold and forbidding.... I look at
her, and feel ashamed that I am happier than she. The absence of what my
philosophic colleagues call a general idea I have detected in myself
only just before death, in the decline of my days, while the soul of
this poor girl has known and will know no refuge all her life, all her
life!
"Let us have lunch, Katya," I say.
"No, thank you," she answers coldly. Another minute passes in silence.
"I don't like Harkov," I say; "it's so grey here--such a grey town."
"Yes, perhaps.... It's ugly. I am here not for long, passing through. I
am going on today."
"Where?"
"To the Crimea... that is, to the Caucasus."
"Oh! For long?"
"I don't know."
Katya gets up, and, with a cold smile, holds out her hand without
looking at me.
I want to ask her, "Then, you won't be at my funeral?" but she does not
look at me; her hand is cold and, as it were, strange. I escort her to
the door in silence. She goes out, walks down the long corridor without
looking back; she knows that I am looking after her, and most likely she
will look back at the turn.
No, she did not look back. I've seen her black dress for the last time:
her steps have died away. Farewell, my treasure!
THE PRIVY COUNCILLOR