I still linger over the last moments spent at Warsaw. These memories
impressed themselves so strongly on my mind that I cannot pass them
over in silence. The day following Kromitzki's arrival I had a strange
sensation. It seemed to me that I did not love Aniela any longer, and
yet could not live without her. It was the first time I felt this--I
might call it psychical dualism. Formerly my love went through its
regular course. I said to myself, "I love her, therefore I desire
her,"--with the same logic as Descartes employs in the statement, "I
think, therefore I exist." Now the formula is changed into, "I do not
love her, but desire her still;" and both elements exist in me as if
they were engraved on two separate stones. For some time I did not
realize that the "I do not love her" was merely a delusion. I love her
as before, but in such a sorrowing manner, with so much bitterness and
venom, that the love has nothing in common with happiness.
Sometimes I fancy that even if Aniela were to confess to me her love,
if she were divorced or a widow, I should not be happy any more. I
would buy such an hour at the price of my life, but truly I do not
know whether I should be able to convert it into real happiness. Who
knows whether the nerves that feel happiness be not paralyzed in me?
Such a thing might happen. Really, what is life worth under such
conditions?
The day before our departure, I went to a gunsmith's shop. It was a
quaint old man who sold me the revolver. If he were not a gunsmith
he might become a professor of psychology. I told him I wanted a
revolver, no matter whose make, Colt's or Smith's, provided it were
good and of a large calibre. The old man picked out the weapon, which
I accepted at once.
"You will want cartridges, sir?"
"Yes, I was going to ask you for them."
"And a case, sir?" he said, looking at me keenly.
"Of course, a case."
"That's all right, sir; then I will give you cartridges of the same
number as the revolver."
It was now my turn to look attentively at him. He understood the
inquiring look, and said:--
"I have been in the trade over forty years, sir, and learned something
about my customers. It often happens that people buy revolvers to blow
out their brains. Would you believe it never happens that such a one
buys a case? It is always this way: 'Please give me a revolver.' 'With
the case?' 'No, never mind the case.' It is a strange thing that a man
about to throw away his life should grudge a rouble for the case. But
such is human nature. Everybody says to himself, 'What the devil do
I want with a case?' And that's how I always find out whether a man
means mischief or not."
"That is very curious indeed," I replied; and it seemed to me a very
characteristic sign.
The gunsmith, with a slight twinkle in his eye, went on: "Therefore as
soon as I perceive his drift I make a point of giving him cartridges a
size too large. It is not a small thing, the taking away one's life;
it requires a deal of courage and determination. I fancy many a man
breaks into a cold perspiration as he finally says: 'Now for the
revolver! Ah, the cartridges do not fit; the gunsmith made a mistake;'
and he has to put it off until the following day. And do you think,
sir, it is an easy thing to do it twice over? Many a man who has faced
death once cannot do it again. There were some who came the next day
to buy a case. I laughed in my sleeve and said: 'There's your case,
and may it last you a long time.'"
I note down this conversation because everything relating to suicide
has become of interest to me, and the old gunsmith's words appeared to
contain a bit of philosophy worth preserving.