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.”