Pavel Semenovich stopped and looked out of the window as if he had
forgotten the story....
“Well, how did it end?” asked our new companion cautiously.
“End?” The narrator woke up. “Of course, everything on the earth ends
some way. This ended stupidly and simply. One night ... my bell rang.
Sharply, anxiously, nervously.... I jumped up in fright, put on my
slippers ... went out on the steps ... there was no one there. But it
occurred to me that Rogov was around the corner. I thought he must have
been passing drunk and ugly and wanted to annoy me by coming at this
time.... He remembered that I was asleep and he, Vanichka Rogov, my
favorite pupil, was drunk on the street and wanted to inform me of it. I
closed the door, went back to bed, and fell asleep. The bell rang again.
I didn’t get up. Let him ring.... It rang again and again.... No, this
must be something else. I put on my overcoat.... Opened the door. There
stood the night watchman. His beard was covered with frost. ‘Please,’ he
said.
“‘Where do you want me to go, brother?’ I asked.
“‘To Semen Nikolayevich, M. Budnikov.... They’ve had ... trouble....’
“Without understanding anything, I dressed mechanically and went. A clear
cold night, and late.... There were lights in the windows of M. Budnikov,
whistles along the street.... What a stir for night.... I went up the
steps and entered. The first thing that caught my eye was the face of
Semen Nikolayevich, M. Budnikov.... Absolutely different, not at all like
what he was before. He was lying on his pillow and looking somewhere into
space.... That was so strange.... I stopped at the door and thought:
‘What’s this? I used to know him but he’s suddenly changed.... This isn’t
the man who came once a month and drank two glasses of tea. Who worried
over Yelena’s divorce, but it’s some one with other thoughts. He lay
immovable, important, but he didn’t look at us or any one, and he seemed
so different.... He was afraid of no one and judged every one; himself,
that is, the old Semen Nikolayevich, and Gavrilo, Yelena, Rogov, and ...
yes, me too.... I suddenly understood....
“Then I saw Gavrilo. By the window, in a corner, grieved but quiet.... As
I suddenly understood, I walked up to him and said:
“‘Did you do this?’
“‘Of course, Pavel Semenovich, I did.’
“‘Why?’
“‘I don’t know, Pavel Semenovich....’
“Then the doctor attracted my attention. He told me that there was no
help.... People kept walking and driving up, coming in, sitting down, and
writing statements.... It seemed so strange that the young prosecutor,
such a careful and reliable man, should give orders not to let Gavrilo
and Yelena go and to hold some sort of an investigation.... I remember
his smile when I asked him the reason for it.... I’ll admit it was a
strange question but I thought that this procedure was unnecessary....
When they started to take Gavrilo and Yelena away I involuntarily got
up and asked if they were going to take me.... I later heard rumors
that something was wrong with me. That was false. My head was never so
clear.... The prosecutor was surprised. ‘If I may give you advice, you
need to drink some water and go to bed.’ ‘But Yelena?’ I asked; ‘why
her?’ ‘We will hope,’ he answered, ‘that everything will turn out in a
way that’s best for her, but now ... at the first inquiry ... it is my
painful duty.’ ... I still thought he was acting wrongly....
“The two were taken away. I went back to my rooms and sat down on the
steps. It was cold.... A clear, autumn, quiet night with a clear, white
frost.... The stars were sparkling and whispering in the sky. They had
such a special expression and meaning.... You could hear their mysterious
whisper, though you couldn’t make out what they said.... It was both a
distant tremor of alarm and also quiet and neighborly sympathy.
“I really wasn’t surprised when Rogov came up quietly and timidly sat
down beside me on the steps. He sat a long time without saying a word....
I don’t remember whether he did say anything, but I knew the whole
story.... He had no thoughts of murder. He wanted ‘to win Yelena’s case
with M. Budnikov’ for himself. He had to get hold of the ticket, on
which, as he supposed, was an endorsement.... This clever scheme pleased
him: to get hold by illegal means of the proof of a legal right. He saw
something humorous in it. The illegal procuring of legal proof in the
form of a hypothetical endorsement.... That’s why he worked his way into
Budnikov’s confidence through the business of the divorce.... He found
out everything about the place and sent one of his obedient clients
from the ‘Crags’ to take the proper box. Gavrilo was to open the door
of M. Budnikov’s apartment with a second key, which Budnikov, through
strange oversight, had failed to take back from him. Instead of waiting
at the door, Gavrilo had gone upstairs. I could have sworn I had seen
him walk along with his heavy tread, his dark head, and the deep hatred
in his soul.... And how he reached the door and how M. Budnikov awoke
and apparently was not even frightened but suddenly understood the whole
situation.
“I still saw that moment in the past, when two students ran into my
rooms on just such a bright night, and I faced them in my shame and
weakness.... What a fire ... evil and sarcastic ... was blazing in the
eyes of one....
“It seemed to me that I had discovered that which was the bond of union
among all things: these lofty, flashing stars, the living murmur of the
wind among the branches, my memories, and this deed.... When I was young
I had often had this sensation.... When my fresh mind was trying to
solve all questions and gain a larger truth. Another time you will seem
to be right at the threshold and everything is about to be cleared up,
when it all vanishes.
“We sat a long time. Finally Rogov got up.
“‘Where are you going now?’ I asked.
“‘I don’t know,’ was the answer, ‘what I must do.... I think I’ll have to
join Gavrilo and Yelena....’
“There he stood. I understood so much more clearly than usual, and I
suddenly realized that he was waiting for me to shake hands. I held out
my hand and he suddenly seized it, and it was a long time before he let
it go....
“He broke away and left ... straight down the street. I looked after him,
as long as I could make out the slender figure of my former pupil....”
* * * * *
For some time the silence in the compartment was interrupted only by
the rattling of the train and a long whistle. The door slammed, and a
conductor walked along the corridor and called out:
“Station of N-sk. Ten minutes’ wait.”
Pavel Semenovich hurriedly got up, picked up a small valise, and, with
a sad smile at his audience, he got out of the train. I began to make
preparations to leave and so did the gentleman in the gold glasses. Petr
Petrovich remained alone. He looked after Pavel Semenovich and, when the
door was shut behind him, he smiled at the gentleman in the gold glasses,
shook his head, and, running his finger around his forehead, he said:
“He always was a crank.... Now I think he’s not all there. I’ve heard
that he threw up his position and now goes around and gives private
lessons.”
The gentleman in the gold glasses looked steadily at him but said nothing.
We got out of the train.
* * * * *
From the point of view of a reporter the case was uninteresting. The
jurors acquitted Gavrilo (Yelena was not tried); Rogov was convicted of
being the instigator, but mercy was recommended. The judge several times
had to stop the witness Pavel Semenovich Padorin, former teacher, who
constantly wandered away from facts, in order to express opinions which
were irrelevant and had nothing to do with the case....
“NECESSITY”
(AN EASTERN TALE)
“NECESSITY”
(AN EASTERN TALE)
I
One day, when the three good sages,—Ulaya, Darnu, and Purana,—were
sitting at the door of their common home, young Kassapa, the son of the
Rajah Lichava, came up to them and sat down on the earth which was piled
around the house but he did not speak. The young man’s cheeks were pale
and his eyes, which had lost the glow of youth, seemed weary.
The old men looked one at another, and good Ulaya said:
“Listen, Kassapa, tell to us, the three sages, who wish you nothing but
good, what is oppressing your soul. Ever since you lay in the cradle,
fate has showered its gifts upon you and you look as downcast as the
meanest slave of your father, poor Jebaka, who yesterday felt the heavy
hand of your steward....”
“Yes, poor Jebaka showed us the welts on his back,” said stern Darnu and
kindly Purana added:
“We wished to call them to your attention, good Kassapa.”
The young man did not allow him to finish. He jumped up from his seat and
exclaimed with an impatience which he had never before displayed:
“Stop, kindly sages, with your sly reproaches! You seem to think that I
must give you account for every welt inflicted by the steward on the back
of the slave Jebaka. I greatly doubt whether I am bound to give account
even of my own acts.”
The sages glanced again one at another and Ulaya said:
“Continue, my son, if you so desire.”
“Desire?” interrupted the young man with a bitter laugh. “The fact is, I
don’t know whether I desire anything or not. And whether I like what I
wish or what another wishes for me.”
He stopped. It was almost perfectly quiet but a breeze stirred the tops
of the trees, and a leaf fell at the feet of Purana. While the sad gaze
of Kassapa was directed upon this, a stone broke off from the heated
cliff and rolled down to the bank of a brook, where a large lizard was
resting at this moment.... Every day at the same hour it crawled to this
spot. Straightening its front legs and closing its protruding eyes,
it apparently listened to the discourse of the sages. It was easy to
imagine that its green body contained the soul of some wise Brahmin. But
this day that stone released this soul from its green envelope, so that
it might enter upon new transformations....
A bitter smile spread over Kassapa’s face.
“Come now, ye kindly sages,” he said, “ask this leaf, if it wished to
fall from the tree, or the stone, if it wished to break off from the
cliff, or the lizard, if it wished to be crushed by the stone. The hour
came, the leaf fell, the lizard heard the last of your conversations. For
all that we know could not be otherwise. Or do ye say that it should and
could have been otherwise than it was?”
“It could not,” answered the sages. “What has been had to be in the great
chain of events.”
“Ye have spoken. Therefore, the welts on the back of Jebaka had to be in
the great chain of events, and every one of them has been written since
eternity in the book of necessity. And you wish me, the same kind of a
stone, the same kind of a lizard, the same kind of a leaf on the great
tree of life, the same kind of an insignificant stream as this brook
which is driven by an unknown power from source to mouth.... You wish me
to struggle against the current which is carrying me onward....”
He kicked the bloody stone which fell into the water and he again sank
back on the earth beside the good sages. The eyes of Kassapa again became
dull and sad.
Old Darnu said nothing; old Purana shook his head; but the cheerful Ulaya
merely laughed and said:
“In the book of necessity, it is also manifestly written, Kassapa, that I
should tell to you what happened once to the two sages, Darnu and Purana,
whom you see before you.... And in the same book it is written that you
shall listen to the tale.”
Then he told the following strange story about his companions and they
listened smilingly, but neither confirmed or denied a word.