Thus, evening after evening was spent in heated and exhilarating discussions. I even gave up socializing and visited friends far less often, and anyway I was becoming less of a novelty in people’s eyes. I say this without reproach, because they continued to be fond of me and to treat me with kindness; all the same, it must be admitted that the appeal of novelty is a force to be reckoned with in this world. As regards my mysterious visitor, I finally began to regard him with admiration, for apart from the enjoyment I derived from his wisdom I began to sense that he was nurturing some kind of a plan and was perhaps preparing himself for some great deed. Maybe what also appealed to him was that, on the face of it, I did not appear to be unduly interested in his secret and did not, either directly or indirectly, attempt to prise it out of him. But in the end I noticed that he himself was beginning desperately to want to tell me something. This became especially apparent about a month after he started visiting me. ‘Do you know’, he once asked me, ‘that people in the town are very curious about us and are surprised that I come to see you so often; but let them, because everything will soon be revealed.’ Occasionally he would suddenly become extremely agitated and at such times would almost invariably get up and leave. At other times he would fix me with a long, penetrating gaze which made me think: ‘Now, surely, he’s going to say something,’ but instead he’d break off and begin to talk of something ordinary and commonplace. He also began to complain frequently of headaches. And then on one occasion, quite unexpectedly, after a long and impassioned discourse, I noticed that he suddenly grew pale, his face twisted, and he just stared at me blankly.
‘What’s the matter with you,’ I asked, ‘are you ill?’
He had just been complaining of a headache.
‘I… you know… I… killed someone.’
Saying this, he smiled, white as a sheet. ‘Why is he smiling?’ the thought suddenly struck me like a blow, even before I had taken in what he said. I too went pale.
‘What did you say?’ I exclaimed.
‘You see’, he replied with the same wan smile, ‘how dearly it cost me to utter those first words. Now that I’ve said them, I’m sure I’ve done the thing. I can go on.’
For a long time I could not believe him, and I finally did so only after he had been coming to me for three days and had told me everything in detail. At first I took him for a madman, but in the end, to my great chagrin and surprise, I had to admit that he was telling the truth. Fourteen years previously he had committed a serious and terrible crime, the victim being a beautiful and wealthy young widow who owned land and had a pied-à-terre in our town. He had fallen passionately in love with her, had declared his feelings for her, and had tried to persuade her to marry him. But she had already given her heart to someone else, a distinguished high-ranking army officer, who was on active service at the time but was expected to return soon. She rejected his offer and asked him not to call on her any more. He stopped calling on her, but, being familiar with the layout of her house, with extraordinary recklessness and with a good chance of being discovered, he broke in one night over the roof from the garden. But, as is very often the case, it is the audacious crime that succeeds where others fail. Having got into the attic through the skylight, he descended the staircase into the living-quarters, knowing that the servants sometimes carelessly left the door at the foot of the stairs unlocked. He was relying on this carelessness and, sure enough, he found it unlocked. On entering the living-quarters, he made his way in the dark into her bedroom, where a night-light was burning. As luck would have it, both her chambermaids had secretly gone without permission to a name-day party in a neighbouring house in the same street. The rest of the servants were asleep in their quarters and in the kitchen on the ground floor. Seeing her sleeping there, his passion exploded, his heart was gripped by a vengeful and jealous anger, and, as though in a drunken frenzy, he went up to her and plunged a knife straight into her heart, so that she did not even utter a cry. With heinous and criminal intent he then made it look as if the servants had been responsible: without compunction he stole her purse, withdrew the keys from under her pillow, unlocked her chest of drawers, and took a few items from it, just as a common servant would have done, leaving all the valuable documents but taking the money; he also took a few of the more weighty pieces of gold jewellery, worth ten times the value of the money, and ignored the small knick-knacks. One or two items he took as keepsakes, but of this later. Having committed this terrible deed, he left by the same route. Neither the following day, when the alarm was raised, nor ever again did it enter anyone’s head to suspect the real culprit! Nor did anyone know of his love for her, because he had always been of a taciturn and incommunicative nature and did not have a friend in whom he could confide. Since he had not been to see her at all during the previous two weeks, he was regarded simply as an acquaintance of the deceased, and not a very close one at that. Instead, suspicion immediately fell on her manservant Peter, a serf, and all the circumstances appeared to confirm this suspicion, for this servant knew that the lady intended—she made no secret of it—to send him to the army as part of the quota of conscripts that she was obliged to supply from her peasants, he being single and of unruly behaviour to boot. It was said that once, in a tavern, when he was drunk and wild with anger, he had threatened to kill her. Two days before her death he had run away and was living somewhere in the town, no one knew where. The very next day after the murder he was found lying blind drunk on the road leading out of town, with a knife in his pocket, and, to make matters worse, the palm of his right hand was for some reason stained with blood. He maintained that this was from a nosebleed, but no one believed him. The maids admitted that they had been to a party and had left the front door of the porch unlocked until their return. There was a lot more circumstantial evidence, on the strength of which the innocent servant was apprehended. He was arrested and the trial began, but precisely a week later the defendant fell ill with fever and died unconscious in hospital. That was the end of the matter, it was deemed to be God’s will, and everyone, the judges, the authorities, and the public at large, remained convinced that the murder had been committed by none other than the deceased servant. Then followed the punishment.
The mysterious visitor, now my friend, told me that to begin with he had felt no pangs of conscience whatsoever. He suffered for a long time, not because of that, but only out of regret that he had killed a beloved woman, that she was no longer living, and that in killing her he had killed his love while the flames of passion were still raging in his heart. As for the spilling of innocent blood, the murder of another human being, he hardly gave that a thought at the time. The idea that his victim could become someone else’s wife seemed inconceivable to him, and for a long time therefore he was convinced in his own mind that there was nothing else he could have done. At first he was slightly troubled by the servant’s arrest, but the latter’s sudden illness and then death put his mind at rest, for, to all appearances (that is how he argued, anyway), the servant had died not from the arrest and the shock of it, but from catching cold while absconding and lying all night blind drunk on the wet ground. The stolen goods and money did not worry him unduly, for (he continued to argue in the same vein) the theft had been committed not for the sake of greed but to allay suspicion. Besides, the sum was quite insignificant, and anyway, shortly afterwards he donated all the money, in fact even more, to an almshouse that had been founded in our town. He had done it specifically to salve his conscience regarding the theft and, strangely enough, for a time (quite a considerable time in fact) he enjoyed peace of mind—he said so himself. He immersed himself in intensive administrative activity, deliberately sought out a most difficult and awkward assignment which took him about two years to accomplish, and, being of a strong character, he almost managed to forget what had happened; whenever the event did return to haunt him, however, he tried to dismiss it from his mind altogether. He threw himself into charitable work, accomplished a great deal, and made numerous
donations to worthy causes in the town; he also became known in the big cities, and was elected on to the committees of charitable societies in Moscow and St Petersburg. Nevertheless, he began to be tortured beyond all endurance by his thoughts. At this point he became attracted to a beautiful, sensible young woman, and he married her soon afterwards, thinking that marriage would dispel his morbid introspection and that, by entering upon a new path and zealously performing his duties with respect to his wife and children, he would be able to distance himself completely from his old memories. But what happened was exactly the reverse. Even in the first year of their marriage he began to be tortured by the nagging thought: ‘My wife loves me, but what if she were to find out?’ When she became pregnant with their first child and told him about it, he was in a quandary: ‘I’m giving life, though I myself have taken life.’ Then he had children. ‘How will I dare to love them, to teach them and bring them up, how will I speak to them of virtue? I have spilt blood.’ They grew up to be delightful children and he wanted to caress them: ‘But I cannot look at their innocent, bright faces; I am unworthy.’ Finally he began to be painfully and menacingly haunted by the blood of the murdered victim, her lost young life, her blood crying out for vengeance. He began to have terrible dreams. But, being stoical, he bore the anguish for a long time: ‘I will atone for everything by this secret suffering of mine.’ But this too proved to be a vain hope; the more time passed, the greater the suffering became. Although he was generally disliked because of his severe and morose nature, he began to be respected in society for his charitable works, but the more respect he was accorded, the more unbearable his life became. He admitted to me that he had thought of killing himself. But instead, he began to be haunted by another idea—an idea which he took to be crazy and impossible at first, but which finally weighed upon his heart to such an extent that he could no longer escape it. The idea was simply this: to stand up and announce in public that he had murdered someone. For about three years he carried this idea around with him, which haunted him in various guises. Finally he became convinced with all his heart that by confessing his crime he would without doubt cleanse his soul and find peace once and for all. But having reached this conclusion, he panicked: how could he do this? And then unexpectedly the incident at the duel occurred. ‘Observing you, I finally made up my mind.’ I stared at him.
‘Can it really be true’, I exclaimed, throwing up my hands in surprise, ‘that such a small incident could fill you with such resolution?’
‘My resolve took three years to mature,’ he replied, ‘but this incident of yours was the final spur. Seeing your example, I reproached myself and was full of envy,’ he added, almost with severity.
‘But no one will ever believe you,’ I remarked. ‘Fourteen years have passed.’
‘I’ve got indisputable evidence. I’ll submit it.’
I burst into tears at this and hugged him closely.
‘However, you must decide one thing for me, just one thing!’ he said (as though everything depended on me now). ‘What about my wife and children! My wife may die of grief, perhaps, and though my children will not lose their titles or their estates, they’ll still have a convict for a father, and that will stay with them for ever. And what a legacy, what a legacy I’ll have left them in their hearts!’
I said nothing.
‘And to part with them, to leave them for ever? It will be for ever, won’t it?’
I just sat there, saying nothing and muttering a prayer to myself. Finally I got up. I was terrified.
‘Well?’ he said, looking at me.
‘Go,’ I said, ‘announce it publicly. Everything will pass, truth alone will remain. When they grow up, your children will understand how outstandingly noble your decision was.’
On that occasion he left me, seemingly fully resolved. But he came back to see me every night after that for a full two weeks, screwing up his courage, unable to take the plunge. It almost broke my heart to see him. There’d be times when he’d turn up determined and say, deeply moved:
‘I know that as soon as I’ve confessed, it’ll really be paradise. I’ve had fourteen years of hell. I want to suffer. I will accept suffering, and I will begin to live. The more one becomes entangled in a tissue of lies, the harder it is to extricate oneself. Now, not only am I unable to love my fellow man, I dare not even love my own children. Lord, surely my children will understand what my suffering has cost me, and perhaps they won’t judge me! God is to be found in truth, not in power.’
‘Everyone will understand your act of courage,’ I’d say to him, ‘if not now, then later, because you will have served truth, the highest of truths, which is not of this world…’
And he would depart seemingly comforted, but the next day he’d be back again, angry and pale, and say sarcastically:
‘Every time I come to see you, you have such a curious look on your face, it’s as if you were saying: “So you still haven’t confessed, eh?” Wait, don’t be too eager to despise me. It’s not as easy as you may imagine. In fact, I may never do it at all. You won’t denounce me, will you?’
But, as it happened, not only was I not looking at him with any kind of idle curiosity, but I could not bear to look at him at all. I was exhausted to the point of collapse, and kept wanting to burst into tears. I could not even sleep at night.
‘I’ve just come from my wife,’ he continued. ‘Do you know what it’s like to have a wife? As I was leaving, my children called out to me: “Goodbye, papa, don’t be long, hurry back and read us Children’s Stories.” No, you don’t understand that! No one can really understand another man’s sorrow.’
His eyes smouldered, his lips began to tremble. Suddenly he slammed his fist on the table so violently that things leapt into the air—such a gentle man, he had never done such a thing before.
‘Why should I do it?’ he exclaimed, ‘Why? No one’s been convicted, have they? No one’s been sent to penal servitude because of me; the servant died of an illness. As for the blood I spilt, haven’t I been punished enough by my suffering? Besides, no one at all will believe me, none of my evidence will convince anyone. Is there any need to make a public confession; is there? I’m ready to suffer all my life for the blood I’ve spilt, if only my wife and children may be spared. Would it be fair to destroy them along with myself? Are we not making a mistake? What is truth? And anyway, will people recognize the truth, will they know it for what it is, will they respect it?’
‘Lord!’ I thought to myself, ‘he’s thinking of people’s respect at a time like this!’ And I began to feel so sorry for him that I was ready to share his fate, if it would do any good. I could see that he was almost demented. I was horrified, realizing not just in my mind but in the very core of my soul what this resolve would cost him.
‘You decide my fate!’ he exclaimed again.
‘Go and make your confession,’ I whispered to him. My voice was failing, but I managed to whisper firmly enough. I took the Gospels from the table, the Russian version,* and showed him St John, chapter 12, verse 24:
‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’ I had been reading this verse just before he arrived.
He read it.
‘Correct,’ he said, but smiled bitterly. ‘Yes,’ he added after a short silence, ‘it’s frightening what one comes across in this book. It’s easy enough to shove it under someone’s nose. And who was it that wrote it, was it really people?’
‘The Holy Ghost wrote it,’ I said.
‘It’s easy enough for you to prattle on,’ he smiled again, but now almost malevolently. I took the book again and opened it at another place, Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 31. He read: ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’
He read it and thrust the book aside. He even began to shake all over.
‘A terrible passage,’ he said, ‘I must say, you picked a good one.’ He rose
from his chair. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘farewell, perhaps I shall not see you again… We shall meet in paradise. So, it’s been fourteen years since I’ve “fallen into the hands of the living God”, now I know what those fourteen years were all about. Tomorrow I will be asking those hands to set me free…’
I was on the point of hugging and kissing him, but I dared not—his face was so contorted and bore such a grim expression. He left. ‘Lord,’ I thought, ‘where is the man going?’ I fell on my knees in front of the icon, and wept as I prayed for him to the Holy Mother of God, our ever-present mediatrix and friend in need. Half an hour passed as I knelt weeping in prayer—it was already late at night, about twelve o’clock. Suddenly, I looked up and saw the door opening, and there he was again. I was astonished.
The Karamazov Brothers Page 48