‘And is it true that you were driven out of your regiment, because you were too cowardly to fight a duel?’ she asked suddenly, out of the blue, and her eyes flashed.
‘It’s true; the officers rendered the verdict that I was to be asked to leave the regiment, although I had in any case already tendered my resignation.’
‘You were driven out as a coward?’
‘Yes, they judged me a coward. But I refused to duel not because I was a coward, but because I didn’t wish to submit to their tyrannical verdict and issue a challenge to a duel when I did not consider myself to be insulted. You should know,’ I couldn’t restrain myself here, ‘that flying in the face of such tyranny through my actions and accepting all the consequences took far more courage than any duel would have done.’
I couldn’t contain myself, with this phrase I launched into self-justifications, as it were, and that was all she needed, a fresh instance of my humiliation. She burst out in malicious laughter.
‘And is it true that for the next three years you wandered the streets of Petersburg like a tramp, and begged for kopecks, and slept under billiard tables?’
‘I even spent some nights in the Vyazemsky House on Haymarket Square.16 Yes, it’s true; in my life after leaving the regiment there was much shame and degradation, but not moral degradation, because I was the first to loathe my actions even then. It was merely the degradation of my will and mind, and it was brought about only by the desperation of my situation. But this passed …’
‘Oh, now you’re an important person – a financier!’
That is, a hint at my pawnshop. But I had already managed to hold myself in check. I saw that she thirsted for explanations that would be humiliating for me and – I didn’t give them. Fortunately, a client rang the bell just then and I went to see him in the front room. Afterwards, an hour later, when she had suddenly dressed to go out, she stopped in front of me and said:
‘You didn’t tell me anything about this before the wedding, however.’
I didn’t answer, and she left.
And so, the next day I stood in this room behind the door and listened to my fate being decided, and in my pocket there was a revolver. She was dressed up, sitting at the table, and Yefimovich was putting on airs. And what do you know: it turned out (I say this to my credit), it turned out exactly as I had foreseen and supposed, though without realizing that I had foreseen and supposed this. I don’t know whether I’m expressing myself clearly.
This is what happened. I listened for a whole hour and for that hour I witnessed a duel between the most noble and lofty woman and a worldly, depraved, dim-witted creature with a grovelling soul. And how, I thought to myself in amazement, how does this naive, this meek, this reserved girl know all this? The cleverest author of a high-society comedy could not have created this scene of ridicule, the most naive laughter and the holy contempt of virtue for vice. And such brilliance in her words and little turns of speech; what wit in her quick replies, what truth in her censure! And at the same time what almost girlish ingenuousness. She laughed in his face at his declarations of love, at his gestures, at his proposals. Coming straight to the matter with a crude assault and not foreseeing any opposition, all of a sudden he had the wind taken out of his sails. At first I might have thought that it was simply coquetry on her part – the ‘coquetry of a clever though depraved creature in order to show herself more lavishly’. But no, the truth shone through like the sun and it was impossible to have any doubts. It was only out of hatred for me, affected and impetuous though it was, that she, inexperienced as she was, could have decided to undertake this meeting, but as soon as it had become reality – her eyes were opened at once. Here was a creature who was simply flailing about so as to insult me no matter what, but once she had decided on such filth she couldn’t bear the disorder. And could she, blameless and pure, with ideals, have been attracted to Yefimovich or any of those other high-society brutes? On the contrary, he aroused only laughter. The whole truth rose up from her soul, and indignation called forth sarcasm from her heart. I repeat, towards the end this fool was utterly dazed and sat scowling, barely responding, so that I even began to fear that he would venture to insult her out of mean-spirited revenge. And I repeat once again: to my credit I heard this scene out almost without astonishment. It was as though I had encountered something familiar. It was as though I had gone in order to encounter it. I had gone, believing nothing, no accusation, although I did put a revolver in my pocket – that’s the truth! And could I have really imagined her otherwise? Wasn’t that why I loved her, wasn’t that why I cherished her, wasn’t that why I had married her? Oh, of course, I was all too convinced that she hated me then, but I was also convinced of her purity. I brought the scene swiftly to a close by opening the door. Yefimovich jumped to his feet, I took her by the hand and invited her to leave with me. Yefimovich found his bearings and suddenly burst out in resounding peals of laughter.
‘Oh, I have no objections to sacred conjugal rights, take her away, take her away! And you know,’ he shouted after me, ‘even though a respectable person can’t fight you, yet out of respect for your lady, I am at your service … If you, however, want to risk it …’
‘Do you hear that!’ I stopped her for a second on the threshold.
Then not a word all the way home. I led her by the hand, and she didn’t resist. On the contrary, she was utterly dumbfounded, but only until we got home. On our arrival, she sat down on a chair and fastened her gaze on me. She was extraordinarily pale; though her lips had at once formed a mocking smile, she was already regarding me with a solemn and severe challenge, and, I believe, she was seriously convinced those first few moments that I was going to kill her with the revolver. But I took the revolver out of my pocket in silence and laid it on the table. She looked at me and at the revolver. (Note: she was already familiar with this revolver. I had acquired it and kept it loaded ever since opening the shop. When I was getting ready to open the shop I had decided not to keep hulking dogs or a burly lackey like Mozer did, for example. The cook opens the door for my visitors. But people who engage in my trade cannot deprive themselves of self-defence, just in case, and I kept a loaded revolver. During those first days when she had come to live in my house she showed a lot of interest in this revolver, she asked a lot of questions, and I even explained the mechanism and how it worked; moreover, I persuaded her once to shoot at a target. Note all that.) Paying no notice of her frightened look, I lay down on the bed half-undressed. I was very tired; it was already almost eleven o’clock. She went on sitting in the same place, without moving, for almost another hour, then she put out the candle and lay down, also dressed, on the sofa by the wall. It was the first time that she didn’t come to bed with me – note that as well …
VI. A Terrible Memory
Now, this terrible memory …
I woke up in the morning, between seven and eight, I think, and it was already almost completely light in the room. I woke up all at once fully conscious and suddenly opened my eyes. She was standing by the table, holding the revolver. She didn’t see that I was awake and watching. And suddenly I saw that she had started to move towards me, holding the revolver. I quickly shut my eyes and pretended to be fast asleep.
She came up to the bed and stood over me. I heard everything; although a dead silence had fallen, I heard even that silence. Then there came a convulsive movement – and I suddenly, uncontrollably, opened my eyes against my will. She was looking me right in the eyes, and the revolver was already by my temple. Our eyes met. But we looked at each other for no more than a moment. I forced myself to shut my eyes again and at the same moment I resolved with every fibre of my being that I would not stir or open my eyes, no matter what awaited me.
In fact, it does happen sometimes that a person who is sound asleep suddenly opens his eyes, even raises his head for a second and looks about the room, then, a moment later, he lays his head on the pillow again and falls asleep without remembering a thing. When, aft
er meeting her gaze and feeling the revolver at my temple, I suddenly shut my eyes again and didn’t stir, like someone sound asleep, she certainly could have supposed that I indeed was asleep and that I hadn’t seen anything, particularly since it was altogether incredible that having seen what I saw I would shut my eyes again at such a moment.
Yes, incredible. But she still might have guessed the truth – that was what suddenly flashed through my mind, at that very same moment. Oh, what a whirlwind of thoughts, sensations raced through my mind in less than a moment; long live the electricity of human thought! In that case (I felt), if she had guessed the truth and knew that I wasn’t sleeping, then I had already crushed her with my readiness to accept death and her hand might now falter. Her former resolve might be shattered by this new extraordinary impression. They say that people standing on a height are drawn downwards, as it were, of their own accord, to the abyss. I think that a lot of suicides and murders have been committed merely because the revolver was already in hand. There’s an abyss here as well, there’s a forty-five-degree slope down which you can’t help but slide and something relentlessly challenges you to pull the trigger. But the awareness that I had seen everything, that I knew everything and that I was awaiting my death from her in silence – might hold her back from that slope.
The silence continued, and suddenly I felt on my temple, at my hairline, the cold touch of iron. You will ask: did I firmly hope that I would be saved? I will answer you as if I were before God himself: I had no hope whatsoever, except perhaps one chance in a hundred. Why, then, did I accept death? But I will ask: What need would I have of life after the revolver was raised against me by the being whom I adored? Moreover, I knew with all the force of my being that a struggle was going on between us at that very moment, a terrible duel for life and death, a duel of that same coward of yesterday, driven out by his comrades. I knew it, and she knew it, if only she had guessed the truth that I wasn’t sleeping.
Perhaps it wasn’t like that, perhaps I didn’t think that then, but still it must have been like that, even without thought, because all I’ve done since is think about it every hour of my life.
But you’ll ask me the question again: why didn’t I save her then from this treachery? Oh, I have asked myself that question a thousand times since – each time when, with a shiver down my spine, I recalled that second. But my soul then was plunged in dark despair: I was lost, I myself was lost, so whom could I have saved? And how do you know whether I still wanted to save somebody then? How can you know what I might have been feeling then?
My consciousness, however, was seething; the seconds passed, there was dead silence; she was still standing over me – and then suddenly I shuddered with hope! I quickly opened my eyes. She was no longer in the room. I got up from the bed: I had defeated her – and she was forever defeated!
I went out to the samovar. We always had the samovar brought to the outer room and she was always the one to pour the tea. I sat down at the table in silence and took a glass of tea from her. About five minutes later I glanced at her. She was terribly pale, even paler than yesterday, and she was looking at me. And suddenly – and suddenly, seeing that I was looking at her, she gave a pale smile with her pale lips, a timid question in her eyes. ‘That means that she still has doubts and is asking herself: does he know or not, did he see or didn’t he?’ I indifferently turned my eyes away. After tea I locked up the shop, went to the market and bought an iron bed and a screen. When I returned home, I had the bed installed in the front room with the screen around it. This bed was for her, but I didn’t say a word to her. Even without words she understood from this bed alone that I ‘had seen everything and knew everything’ and that there was no longer any doubt about this. I left the revolver on the table for the night as always. At night she silently got into her new bed: the marriage was dissolved, ‘she had been defeated but not forgiven’. During the night she became delirious, and by morning she had a fever. She was confined to bed for six weeks.
CHAPTER 2
I. A Dream of Pride
Lukerya just announced that she won’t stay with me and that she’ll leave as soon as the mistress is buried. I prayed on my knees for five minutes, and I had wanted to pray for an hour, but I keep thinking, and thinking, and they’re all such aching thoughts and my head aches – what’s the use of praying – it’s nothing but a sin! It’s also strange that I don’t want to sleep: in great, in such great sorrow, after the first violent outbursts, one always wants to sleep. They say that people who are condemned to death sleep extremely soundly on their last night. As they should, it’s only natural, otherwise they wouldn’t have the strength to endure it … I lay down on the sofa, but I didn’t fall asleep …
… For the six weeks of her illness we took care of her day and night – Lukerya and I and a trained nurse from the hospital, whom I had hired. I didn’t begrudge the money, and even wanted to spend money on her. I called in Dr Schroeder and paid him ten roubles a visit. When she regained consciousness, I started to show myself less often. But why am I describing this? When she was completely on her feet again, she sat quietly and silently in my room at a special table, which I had also bought for her at the time … Yes, it’s true, we were perfectly silent; that is, we began to talk later on, but only about the usual things. Of course, I deliberately refrained from becoming expansive, but I could see very well that she also was happy not to say a word more than was necessary. This seemed perfectly natural on her part: ‘She is too shaken and too defeated,’ I thought, ‘and of course she needs time to forget and get used to things.’ And so it was that we were silent, but every minute I was secretly preparing myself for the future. I thought that she was doing the same as well, and it was terribly entertaining for me to guess: Exactly what is she thinking about now?
I’ll say one more thing: Oh, of course, nobody knows what I endured as I grieved over her during her illness. But I kept my grief to myself and kept the grieving in my heart even from Lukerya. I couldn’t imagine, I couldn’t even suppose that she would die without learning everything. When she was out of danger and her health started to return, I remember this, I quickly calmed down and very much so. What’s more, I decided to postpone our future for as long as possible, and for the present to leave everything as it was now. Yes, then something happened to me that was strange and peculiar, I don’t know what else to call it: I had triumphed and this thought alone proved to be quite sufficient for me. And that’s how the whole winter passed. Oh, I was pleased as I had never been before, and that for the whole winter.
You see: in my life there had been one terrible external circumstance, which until then, that is, until the catastrophe with my wife, weighed heavily on me every day and every hour, namely, the loss of my reputation and leaving the regiment. To put it in a nutshell: this had been a tyrannical injustice against me. True, my comrades disliked me on account of my difficult and, perhaps, ridiculous character, although it often happens that what you find sublime, what you hold dear and esteem, for some reason at the same time makes a group of your comrades laugh. Oh, I was never liked, even in school. I’ve never been liked anywhere. Even Lukerya cannot like me. The incident in the regiment, though a consequence of this dislike for me, without a doubt bore an accidental character. I mention this because there’s nothing more exasperating and intolerable than to be ruined by an incident that might or might not have happened, by an unfortunate chain of circumstances that might have passed over, like a cloud. It’s humiliating for an educated man. The incident was as follows.
During the intermission at the theatre I went to the bar. Hussar17 A—v came in suddenly and began talking loudly with two of his fellow hussars in the presence of all the officers and public gathered there about how Bezumtsev, the captain of our regiment, had just caused a scandal in the corridor ‘and he seems to be drunk’. The conversation moved on to other things; besides, there had been a mistake, because Captain Bezumtsev wasn’t drunk, and there hadn’t really been a scandal. Th
e hussars began talking about something else, and that was the end of it, but the next day the story made its way to our regiment, and at once they began saying how I was the only person at the bar from our regiment and that when Hussar A—v spoke insolently of Captain Bezumtsev I had not gone over to A—v and put a stop to it by reprimanding him. But why on earth should I have done that? If he had it in for Bezumtsev, then it was their personal affair, and why should I get involved? Meanwhile, the officers began to take the position that the affair was not personal but concerned the regiment, and that since I was the only officer of our regiment present, I had proved by my conduct to all the officers at the bar as well as the public that there might be officers in our regiment who were not overly scrupulous concerning their honour and the regiment’s. I could not agree with this verdict. I was given to understand that I might still set everything right even now, belatedly, if I should wish to demand a formal explanation from A—v. I did not wish to do so and since I was annoyed, I refused with pride. I then at once resigned my commission – and that’s the whole story. I left proud, but with my spirit crushed. My mind and will both foundered. It was just then that my sister’s husband squandered our little fortune and my portion of it, a tiny portion, so I was left on the street without a kopeck. I could have found employment in a private business, but I didn’t: after wearing my splendid regimental uniform I couldn’t go work on some railroad. And so – if it’s shame, let it be shame, if it’s disgrace, let it be disgrace, if it’s degradation, let it be degradation, and the worse, the better – that’s what I chose. There followed three years of gloomy memories, even of the Vyazemsky House. A year and a half ago a rich old lady, my godmother, died in Moscow and among other bequests unexpectedly left me 3,000 in her will. I gave it some thought and then decided my fate. I settled on the pawnshop, with no apologies to anyone: money, then a corner and – a new life far away from my former memories – that was the plan. Nevertheless, my gloomy past and the reputation of my honour, forever ruined, tormented me every hour, every minute. But then I married. By chance or not – I don’t know. But when I brought her into my house, I thought that I was bringing a friend, I greatly needed a friend. But I saw clearly that my friend had to be prepared, given the finishing touches, and even defeated. And could I have explained anything straight off like that to this sixteen-year-old girl with her prejudices? For example, how could I, without the accidental assistance of the terrible catastrophe with the revolver, have convinced her that I wasn’t a coward and that I had been unjustly accused by the regiment of being a coward? But the catastrophe arrived just at the right moment. Having stood up to the revolver, I had avenged all of my gloomy past. And even though nobody knew about it, she knew about it, and that was everything for me, because she was everything to me, all my hopes for the future in my dreams! She was the only person whom I was preparing for myself, and I didn’t need another – and now she knew everything; at least she knew that she had unjustly hurried to join my enemies. This thought delighted me. In her eyes I could no longer be a scoundrel, but merely a peculiar person, and even this thought, after everything that had happened, did not at all displease me: peculiarity is not a vice; on the contrary, it sometimes attracts the feminine character. In a word, I deliberately postponed the finale: what had taken place was more than sufficient, for the time being, for my peace of mind and contained more than enough pictures and material for my dreams. That’s the nasty thing about this – I’m a dreamer: I had enough material; as for her, I thought that she would wait.
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