Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 1

by Leo Tolstoy

  ‘Are we still far from the town?’

  ‘About five miles from the last mile-post.’

  The driver was a respectable man, careful and taciturn, and he drove rather slowly and wearily.

  We drove on. I remained silent and felt better because I was looking forward to a rest and hoped that the discomfort would pass. We went on and on in the darkness for a terribly long time as it seemed to me. We reached the town. Everybody was already in bed. Mean little houses showed up through the darkness, and the sound of our jingling bells and the clatter of the horses’ feet re-echoed, especially near the houses, and all this was far from cheerful. We passed large white houses here and there. I was impatient to get to the post-station and a samovar, and to lie down and rest.

  At last we came up to a small house with a post beside it. The house was white, but appeared terribly melancholy to me, so much so that it seemed uncanny and I got out of the carriage slowly.

  Sergéy briskly took out all that would be wanted, running clattering up the porch, and the sound of his steps depressed me. I entered a little corridor. A sleepy man with a spot on his cheek (which seemed to me terrifying) showed us into a room. It was gloomy. I entered, and the uncanny feeling grew worse.

  ‘Haven’t you got a bedroom? I should like to rest.’

  ‘Yes, we have. This is it.’

  It was a small square room, with whitewashed walls. I remember that it tormented me that it should be square. It had one window with a red curtain, a birchwood table, and a sofa with bent-wood arms. We went in. Sergéy prepared the samovar and made tea, while I took a pillow and lay down on the sofa. I was not asleep and heard how Sergéy was busy with the tea and called me to have some. But I was afraid of getting up and arousing myself completely, and I thought how frightful it would be to sit up in that room. I did not get up but began to doze. I must have fallen asleep, for when I awoke I found myself alone in the room and it was dark. I was again as wide awake as I had been in the chaise. I felt that to sleep would be quite impossible. ‘Why have I come here? Where am I betaking myself? Why and whither am I escaping? I am running away from something dreadful and cannot escape it. I am always with myself, and it is I who am my tormentor. Here I am, the whole of me. Neither the Pénza nor any other property will add anything to or take anything from me. And it is myself I am weary of and find intolerable and a torment. I want to fall asleep and forget myself and cannot. I cannot get away from myself!’

  I went out into the passage. Sergéy was sleeping on a narrow bench with one arm hanging down, but he was sleeping peacefully and the man with the spot was also asleep. I had gone out into the corridor thinking to escape from what tormented me. But it had come out with me and cast a gloom over everything. I felt just as filled with horror or even more so.

  ‘But what folly this is!’ I said to myself. ‘Why am I depressed? What am I afraid of?’

  ‘Me!’ answered the voice of Death, inaudibly. ‘I am here!’

  A cold shudder ran down my back. Yes! Death! It will come – here it is – and it ought not to be. Had I been actually facing death I could not have suffered as much as I did then. Then I should have been frightened. But now I was not frightened. I saw and felt the approach of death, and at the same time I felt that such a thing ought not to exist.

  My whole being was conscious of the necessity and the right to live, and yet I felt that Death was being accomplished. And this inward conflict was terrible. I tried to throw off the horror. I found a brass candlestick, the candle in which had a long wick, and lighted it. The red glow of the candle and its size – little less than the candlestick itself— told me the same thing. Everything told me the same: ‘There is nothing in life. Death is the only real thing, and death ought not to exist.’

  I tried to turn my thoughts to things that had interested me – to the estate I was to buy, and to my wife – but found nothing to cheer me. It had all become nothing. Everything was hidden by the terrible consciousness that my life was ebbing away. I needed sleep. I lay down, but the next instant I jumped up again in terror. A fit of the spleen seized me – spleen such as the feeling before one is sick, but spiritual spleen. It was uncanny and dreadful. It seems that death is terrible, but when remembering and thinking of life it is one’s dying life that is terrible. Life and death somehow merged into one another. Something was tearing my soul apart and could not complete the severance. Again I went to look at the sleepers, and again I tried to go to sleep. Always the same horror: red, white, and square. Something tearing within that yet could not be torn apart. A painful, painfully dry and spiteful feeling, no atom of kindliness, but just a dull and steady spitefulness towards myself and towards that which had made me.

  What created me? God, they say. God … what about prayer? I remembered. For some twenty years I had not prayed, and I did not believe in anything, though as a matter of propriety I fasted and went to Communion every year. Now I began to pray. ‘Lord have mercy!’ ‘Our Father’. ‘Holy Virgin’. I began to compose new prayers, crossing myself, bowing down to the ground and glancing around me for fear that I might be seen. This seemed to divert me – the fear of being seen distracted my terror – and I lay down. But I had only to lie down and close my eyes for the same feeling of terror to knock and rouse me. I could bear it no longer. I woke the hotel servant and Sergéy, gave orders to harness, and we drove off again.

  The fresh air and the drive made me feel better. But I realized that something new had come into my soul and poisoned my former life.

  * * *

  By nightfall we reached our destination. The whole day I had been fighting my depression and had mastered it, but it had left its terrible dregs in my soul as if some misfortune had befallen me, and I could forget it only for a time. There it remained at the bottom of my soul and had me in its power.

  The old steward of the estate received me well, though without any pleasure. He was sorry the estate was to be sold.

  The furniture in the little rooms was upholstered. There was a new, brightly polished samovar, a large-sized tea-service, and honey for tea. Everything was good. But I questioned him about the estate unwillingly, as if it were some old forgotten lesson. However, I fell asleep without any depression, and this I attributed to my having prayed again before going to bed.

  After that I went on living as before, but the fear of that spleen always hung over me. I had to live without stopping to think, and above all to live in my accustomed surroundings. As a schoolboy repeats a lesson learnt by heart without thinking, so I had to live to avoid falling a prey to that awful depression I had first experienced at Arzamás.

  I returned home safely. I did not buy the estate – I had not enough money – and I continued to live as before, only with this difference, that I began to pray and went to church. As before – it seemed to me, but I now remember that it was not as before – I lived on what had been previously begun. I continued to go along the rails already laid by my former strength, but I did not undertake anything new. And I took less part in those things I had previously begun. Everything seemed dull to me and I became pious. My wife noticed this, and scolded and nagged me on account of it. But my spleen did not recur at home.

  But once I had unexpectedly to go to Moscow. I got ready in the afternoon and left in the evening. It was in connexion with a lawsuit. I arrived in Moscow cheerful. On the way I had talked with a landowner from Khárkov about estate-management and banks, and about where to put up, and about the theatre. We both decided to stop at the Moscow Hotel on the Myasnítsky Street, and to go to see Faust that same evening.

  When we arrived I was shown into a small room. The oppressive air of the corridor filled my nostrils. A porter brought in my portmanteau and a chambermaid lighted a candle. The wick was lighted and then as usual the flame went down. In the next room someone coughed, probably an old man. The maid went out, but the porter remained and asked if he should uncord my luggage. The flame of the candle burnt up, revealing the blue wall-paper with yellow stri
pes on the partition, a shabby table, a small sofa, a looking-glass, a window, and the narrow dimensions of the room. And suddenly I was seized with an attack of the same horror as in Arzamás. ‘My God! How can I stay here all night?’ I thought.

  ‘Yes, uncord, my good fellow,’ I told the porter to keep him longer in the room. ‘I’ll dress quickly and go to the theatre.’ When the porter had uncorded, I said: ‘Please go to Number Eight and tell the gentleman who came here with me that I shall be ready immediately and will come to him.’

  The porter went out and I dressed hurriedly, afraid to look at the walls. ‘What nonsense!’ I thought. ‘What am I afraid of? Just like a child! I am not afraid of ghosts. Ghosts! Ghosts would be better than what I am afraid of. Why, what is it? Nothing. Myself.… Oh, nonsense!’

  However, I put on a hard, cold, starched shirt, inserted the studs, donned my evening coat and new boots, and went to find the Khárkov landowner, who was ready. We started for the opera. He stopped on the way at a hairdresser’s to have his hair curled, and I had mine cut by a French assistant and had a chat with him, and bought a pair of gloves. All was well, and I quite forgot my oblong room with its partition. In the theatre, too, it was pleasant. After the opera the Khárkov landowner suggested that we should have supper. That was contrary to my habit, but just then I again remembered the partition in my room and accepted his suggestion.

  We got back after one. I had had two glasses of wine, to which I was unaccustomed, but in spite of that I felt cheerful. But no sooner had we entered the corridor in which the lamp was turned low and I was surrounded by the hotel smell, than a shiver of horror ran down my spine. There was nothing to be done however, and I pressed my companion’s hand and went into my room.

  I spent a terrible night – worse than at Arzamás. Not till dawn, when the old man at the other side of the door was coughing again, did I fall asleep, and then not in the bed, in which I had lain down several times during the night, but on the sofa. I had suffered all night unbearably. Again my soul and body were being painfully torn asunder. ‘I am living, have lived, and ought to live, and suddenly – here is death to destroy everything. Then what is life for? To die? To kill myself at once? No, I am afraid. To wait for death till it comes? I fear that even more. Then I must live. But what for? In order to die?’ And I could not escape from that circle. I took up a book, read, and forgot myself for a moment, but then again the same question and the same horror. I lay down in bed and closed my eyes. It was worse still!

  God has so arranged it. Why? They say: ‘Don’t ask, but pray!’ Very well. I prayed, and prayed as I had done at Arzamás. Then and afterwards I prayed simply, like a child. But now my prayers had a meaning. ‘If Thou dost exist, reveal to me why and what I am!’ I bowed down, repeated all the prayers I knew, composed my own, and added: ‘Then reveal it!’ and became silent, awaiting an answer. But no answer came. It was just as if there were no one who could give an answer. And I remained alone with myself. And in place of Him who would not reply I answered my own questions. ‘Why? In order to live in a future life,’ I said to myself. ‘Then why this obscurity, this torment? I cannot believe in a future life. I believed when I did not ask with my whole soul, but now I cannot, I cannot. If Thou didst exist Thou wouldst speak to me and to all men. And if Thou dost not exist there is nothing but despair. And I do not want that. I do not want that!’

  I became indignant. I asked Him to reveal the truth to me, to reveal Himself to me. I did all that everybody does, but He did not reveal Himself. ‘Ask and it shall be given you’ I remembered, and I had asked and in that asking had found not consolation but relaxation. Perhaps I did not pray to Him but repudiated Him. ‘You recede a span and He recedes a mile’ as the proverb has it. I did not believe in Him but I asked, and He did not reveal anything to me. I was balancing accounts with Him and blaming Him. I simply did not believe.

  * * *

  The next day I did all in my power to get through my ordinary affairs so as to avoid another night in the hotel. Although I did not finish everything, I left for home that evening. I did not feel any spleen. That night in Moscow still further changed my life which had begun to change from the time I was at Arzamás. I now attended still less to my affairs and became apathetic. I also grew weaker in health. My wife insisted that I should undergo a treatment. She said that my talks about faith and God arose from ill health. But I knew that my weakness and ill health were the effect of the unsolved question within me. I tried not to let that question dominate me, and tried to fill my life amid my customary surroundings. I went to church on Sundays and feast days, prepared to receive Communion, and even fasted, as I had begun to do since my visit to Pénza, and I prayed, though more as a custom. I did not expect any result from this, but as it were kept the demand-note and presented it at the due date, though I knew it was impossible to secure payment. I only did it on the chance. I did not fill my life by estate management – it repelled me by the struggle it involved (I had no energy) – but by reading magazines, newspapers, and novels, and playing cards for small stakes. I only showed energy by hunting, which I did from habit. I had been fond of hunting all my life.

  One winter day a neighbouring huntsman came with his wolf-hounds. I rode out with him. When we reached the place we put on snow-shoes and went to the spot where the wolf might be found. The hunt was unsuccessful, the wolves broke through the ring of beaters. I became aware of this from a distance and went through the forest following the fresh tracks of a hare. These led me far into a glade, where I spied the hare, but it jumped out so that I lost it. I went back through the thick forest. The snow was deep, my snow-shoes sank in, and branches of the trees entangled me. The trees grew ever more and more dense. I began to ask myself: ‘Where am I?’ The snow had altered the look of everything.

  Suddenly I realized that I had lost my way. I was far from the house and from the hunters too, and could hear nothing. I was tired and bathed in perspiration. If I stopped I should freeze. If I went on my strength would fail me. I shouted. All was still. No one answered. I turned back, but it was the same again. I looked around – nothing but trees, impossible to tell which was east or west. Again I turned back. My legs were tired. I grew frightened, stopped, and was seized with the same horror as in Arzamás and Moscow, but a hundred times worse. My heart palpitated, my arms and legs trembled. ‘Is this death? I won’t have it! Why death? What is death?’ Once again I wanted to question and reproach God, but here I suddenly felt that I dare not and must not do so, that it is impossible to present one’s account to God, that He had said what is needful and I alone was to blame. I began to implore His forgiveness, and felt disgusted with myself.

  The horror did not last long. I stood there for awhile, came to myself, went on in one direction and soon emerged from the forest. I had not been far from its edge, and came out on to the road. My arms and legs still trembled and my heart was beating, but I felt happy. I found the hunting party and we returned home. I was cheerful, but I knew there was something joyful which I would make out when alone. And so it was. I remained by myself in my study and began to pray, asking forgiveness and remembering my sins. There seemed to me to be but few, but when I recalled them they became hateful to me.

  * * *

  After that I began to read the scriptures. The Old Testament I found unintelligible though enchanting, but the Gospels moved me profoundly. But most of all I read the Lives of the Saints, and that reading consoled me, presenting examples that it seemed more and more possible to follow. From that time forth farming and family matters occupied me less and less. They even repelled me. They all seemed to me wrong. What it was that was ‘right’ I did not know, but what had formerly constituted my life had now ceased to do so. This became plain to me when I was going to buy another estate.

  Not far from us an estate was for sale on very advantageous terms. I went to see it. Everything was excellent and advantageous; especially so was the fact that the peasants there had no land of their own except their k
itchen-gardens. I saw that they would have to work on the landlord’s land merely for permission to use his pastures. And so it was. I grasped all this, and by old habit felt pleased about it. But on my way home I met an old woman who asked her way. I had a talk with her, during which she told me about her poverty. I got home, and when telling my wife of the advantages that estate offered, I suddenly felt ashamed and disgusted. I told her I could not buy it because the advantages we should get would be based on the peasants’ destitution and sorrow. As I said this I suddenly realized the truth of what I was saying – the chief truth, that the peasants, like ourselves, want to live, that they are human beings, our brothers, and sons of the Father as the Gospels say. Suddenly something that had long troubled me seemed to have broken away, as though it had come to birth. My wife was vexed and scolded me, but I felt glad.

  That was the beginning of my madness. But my utter madness began later – about a month after that.

  It began by my going to church. I stood there through the liturgy and prayed well, and listened and was touched. Then suddenly they brought me some consecrated bread: after that we went up to the Cross, and people began pushing one another. Then at the exit there were beggars. And it suddenly became clear to me that this ought not to be, and not only ought not to be but in reality was not. And if this was not, then neither was there either death or fear, and there was no longer the former tearing asunder within me and I no longer feared anything.

  Then the light fully illumined me and I became what I now am. If there is nothing of all that – then it certainly does not exist within me. And there at the church door I gave away to the beggars all I had with me – some thirty-five rubles – and went home on foot talking with the peasants.

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS

  LOUISE and AYLMER MAUDE spent much of their lives in Russia. Their Quaker background led them to share many of Tolstoy’s views on spiritual life, moral obligation and passive resistance to violence, and they helped him to organize the Doukhobor migration to Canada in 1893. Aylmer Maude, whose business activities left him time to write a biography of his friend, also translated most of Tolstoy’s major works in partnership with his wife. These translations, which were commended by the author himself, are still widely regarded as the best.