Kovrin received a professorship at the University. The inaugural address
was fixed for the second of December, and a notice to that effect was
hung up in the corridor at the University. But on the day appointed he
informed the students' inspector, by telegram, that he was prevented by
illness from giving the lecture.
He had hæmorrhage from the throat. He was often spitting blood, but it
happened two or three times a month that there was a considerable loss
of blood, and then he grew extremely weak and sank into a drowsy
condition. This illness did not particularly frighten him, as he knew
that his mother had lived for ten years or longer suffering from the
same disease, and the doctors assured him that there was no danger, and
had only advised him to avoid excitement, to lead a regular life, and to
speak as little as possible.
In January again his lecture did not take place owing to the same
reason, and in February it was too late to begin the course. It had to
be postponed to the following year.
By now he was living not with Tanya, but with another woman, who was two
years older than he was, and who looked after him as though he were a
baby. He was in a calm and tranquil state of mind; he readily gave in to
her, and when Varvara Nikolaevna--that was the name of his
friend--decided to take him to the Crimea, he agreed, though he had a
presentiment that no good would come of the trip.
They reached Sevastopol in the evening and stopped at an hotel to rest
and go on the next day to Yalta. They were both exhausted by the
journey. Varvara Nikolaevna had some tea, went to bed and was soon
asleep. But Kovrin did not go to bed. An hour before starting for the
station, he had received a letter from Tanya, and had not brought
himself to open it, and now it was lying in his coat pocket, and the
thought of it excited him disagreeably. At the bottom of his heart he
genuinely considered now that his marriage to Tanya had been a mistake.
He was glad that their separation was final, and the thought of that
woman who in the end had turned into a living relic, still walking about
though everything seemed dead in her except her big, staring,
intelligent eyes--the thought of her roused in him nothing but pity and
disgust with himself. The handwriting on the envelope reminded him how
cruel and unjust he had been two years before, how he had worked off his
anger at his spiritual emptiness, his boredom, his loneliness, and his
dissatisfaction with life by revenging himself on people in no way to
blame. He remembered, also, how he had torn up his dissertation and all
the articles he had written during his illness, and how he had thrown
them out of window, and the bits of paper had fluttered in the wind and
caught on the trees and flowers. In every line of them he saw strange,
utterly groundless pretension, shallow defiance, arrogance, megalomania;
and they made him feel as though he were reading a description of his
vices. But when the last manuscript had been torn up and sent flying out
of window, he felt, for some reason, suddenly bitter and angry; he went
to his wife and said a great many unpleasant things to her. My God, how
he had tormented her! One day, wanting to cause her pain, he told her
that her father had played a very unattractive part in their romance,
that he had asked him to marry her. Yegor Semyonitch accidentally
overheard this, ran into the room, and, in his despair, could not utter
a word, could only stamp and make a strange, bellowing sound as though
he had lost the power of speech, and Tanya, looking at her father, had
uttered a heart-rending shriek and had fallen into a swoon. It was
hideous.
All this came back into his memory as he looked at the familiar writing.
Kovrin went out on to the balcony; it was still warm weather and there
was a smell of the sea. The wonderful bay reflected the moonshine and
the lights, and was of a colour for which it was difficult to find a
name. It was a soft and tender blending of dark blue and green; in
places the water was like blue vitriol, and in places it seemed as
though the moonlight were liquefied and filling the bay instead of
water. And what harmony of colours, what an atmosphere of peace, calm,
and sublimity!
In the lower storey under the balcony the windows were probably open,
for women's voices and laughter could be heard distinctly. Apparently
there was an evening party.
Kovrin made an effort, tore open the envelope, and, going back into his
room, read:
"My father is just dead. I owe that to you, for you have killed him. Our
garden is being ruined; strangers are managing it already--that is, the
very thing is happening that poor father dreaded. That, too, I owe to
you. I hate you with my whole soul, and I hope you may soon perish. Oh,
how wretched I am! Insufferable anguish is burning my soul.... My curses
on you. I took you for an extraordinary man, a genius; I loved you, and
you have turned out a madman...."
Kovrin could read no more, he tore up the letter and threw it away. He
was overcome by an uneasiness that was akin to terror. Varvara
Nikolaevna was asleep behind the screen, and he could hear her
breathing. From the lower storey came the sounds of laughter and women's
voices, but he felt as though in the whole hotel there were no living
soul but him. Because Tanya, unhappy, broken by sorrow, had cursed him
in her letter and hoped for his perdition, he felt eerie and kept
glancing hurriedly at the door, as though he were afraid that the
uncomprehended force which two years before had wrought such havoc in
his life and in the life of those near him might come into the room and
master him once more.
He knew by experience that when his nerves were out of hand the best
thing for him to do was to work. He must sit down to the table and force
himself, at all costs, to concentrate his mind on some one thought. He
took from his red portfolio a manuscript containing a sketch of a small
work of the nature of a compilation, which he had planned in case he
should find it dull in the Crimea without work. He sat down to the table
and began working at this plan, and it seemed to him that his calm,
peaceful, indifferent mood was coming back. The manuscript with the
sketch even led him to meditation on the vanity of the world. He thought
how much life exacts for the worthless or very commonplace blessings it
can give a man. For instance, to gain, before forty, a university chair,
to be an ordinary professor, to expound ordinary and second-hand
thoughts in dull, heavy, insipid language--in fact, to gain the position
of a mediocre learned man, he, Kovrin, had had to study for fifteen
years, to work day and night, to endure a terrible mental illness, to
experience an unhappy marriage, and to do a great number of stupid and
unjust things which it would have been pleasant not to remember. Kovrin
recognised clearly, now, that he was a mediocrity, and readily resigned
himself to it, as he considered that every man ought to be satisfied
with what he is.
The plan of the volume would have soothed him completely, but the torn
letter showed white on the floor and prevented him from concentrating
his attention. He got up from the table, picked up the pieces of the
letter and threw them out of window, but there was a light wind blowing
from the sea, and the bits of paper were scattered on the windowsill.
Again he was overcome by uneasiness akin to terror, and he felt as
though in the whole hotel there were no living soul but himself.... He
went out on the balcony. The bay, like a living thing, looked at him
with its multitude of light blue, dark blue, turquoise and fiery eyes,
and seemed beckoning to him. And it really was hot and oppressive, and
it would not have been amiss to have a bathe.
Suddenly in the lower storey under the balcony a violin began playing,
and two soft feminine voices began singing. It was something familiar.
The song was about a maiden, full of sick fancies, who heard one night
in her garden mysterious sounds, so strange and lovely that she was
obliged to recognise them as a holy harmony which is unintelligible to
us mortals, and so flies back to heaven.... Kovrin caught his breath and
there was a pang of sadness at his heart, and a thrill of the sweet,
exquisite delight he had so long forgotten began to stir in his breast.
A tall black column, like a whirlwind or a waterspout, appeared on the
further side of the bay. It moved with fearful rapidity across the bay,
towards the hotel, growing smaller and darker as it came, and Kovrin
only just had time to get out of the way to let it pass.... The monk
with bare grey head, black eyebrows, barefoot, his arms crossed over his
breast, floated by him, and stood still in the middle of the room.
"Why did you not believe me?" he asked reproachfully, looking
affectionately at Kovrin. "If you had believed me then, that you were a
genius, you would not have spent these two years so gloomily and so
wretchedly."
Kovrin already believed that he was one of God's chosen and a genius; he
vividly recalled his conversations with the monk in the past and tried
to speak, but the blood flowed from his throat on to his breast, and not
knowing what he was doing, he passed his hands over his breast, and his
cuffs were soaked with blood. He tried to call Varvara Nikolaevna, who
was asleep behind the screen; he made an effort and said:
"Tanya!"
He fell on the floor, and propping himself on his arms, called again:
"Tanya!"
He called Tanya, called to the great garden with the gorgeous flowers
sprinkled with dew, called to the park, the pines with their shaggy
roots, the rye-field, his marvellous learning, his youth, courage,
joy--called to life, which was so lovely. He saw on the floor near his
face a great pool of blood, and was too weak to utter a word, but an
unspeakable, infinite happiness flooded his whole being. Below, under
the balcony, they were playing the serenade, and the black monk
whispered to him that he was a genius, and that he was dying only
because his frail human body had lost its balance and could no longer
serve as the mortal garb of genius.
When Varvara Nikolaevna woke up and came out from behind the screen,
Kovrin was dead, and a blissful smile was set upon his face.