Part 220

After having lain down for a while he got up and walked wringing his hands, not from corner to corner as usually, but in a square along the walls. He caught a glimpse of himself in the glass. His face was pale and haggard, his temples hollow, his eyes bigger, darker, more immobile, as if they were not his own, and they expressed the intolerable suffering of his soul.

In the afternoon the painter knocked at the door.

"Gregory, are you at home?" he asked.

Receiving no answer, he stood musing for a while, and said to himself good-naturedly:

"Out. He's gone to the University. Damn him."

And went away.

Vassiliev lay down on his bed and burying his head in the pillow he began to cry with the pain. But the faster his tears flowed, the more terrible was the pain. When it was dark, he got into his mind the idea of the horrible night which was awaiting him and awful despair seized him. He dressed quickly, ran out of his room, leaving the door wide open, and into the street without reason or purpose. Without asking himself where he was going, he walked quickly to Sadovaia Street.

Snow was falling as yesterday. It was thawing. Putting his hands into his sleeves, shivering, and frightened of the noises and the bells of the trams and of passers-by, Vassiliev walked from Sadovaia to Sukhariev Tower then to the Red Gates, and from here he turned and went to Basmannaia. He went into a public-house and gulped down a big glass of vodka, but felt no better. Arriving at Razgoulyai, he turned to the right and began to stride down streets that he had never in his life been down before. He came to that old bridge under which the river Yaouza roars and from whence long rows of lights are seen in the windows of the Red Barracks. In order to distract the pain of his soul by a new sensation or another pain, not knowing what to do, weeping and trembling, Vassiliev unbuttoned his coat and jacket, baring his naked breast to the damp snow and the wind. Neither lessened the pain. Then he bent over the rail of the bridge and stared down at the black, turbulent Yaouza, and he suddenly wanted to throw himself head-first, not from hatred of life, not for the sake of suicide, but only to hurt himself and so to kill one pain by another. But the black water, the dark, deserted banks covered with snow were frightening. He shuddered and went on. He walked as far as the Red Barracks, then back and into a wood, from the wood to the bridge again.

"No! Home, home," he thought. "At home I believe it's easier."

And he went back. On returning home he tore off his wet clothes and hat, began to pace along the walls, and paced incessantly until the very morning. VII

The next morning when the painter and the medico came to see him, they found him in a shirt torn to ribbons, his hands bitten all over, tossing about in the room and moaning with pain.

"For God's sake!" he began to sob, seeing his comrades, "Take me anywhere you like, do what you like, but save me, for God's sake now, now! I'll kill myself."

The painter went pale and was bewildered. The medico, too, nearly began to cry; but, believing that medical men must be cool and serious on every occasion of life, he said coldly:

"It's a fit you've got. But never mind. Come to the doctor, at once."

"Anywhere you like, but quickly, for God's sake!"

"Don't be agitated. You must struggle with yourself."

The painter and the medico dressed Vassiliev with trembling hands and led him into the street.

"Mikhail Sergueyich has been wanting to make your acquaintance for a long while," the medico said on the way. "He's a very nice man, and knows his job splendidly. He took his degree in '82, and has got a huge practice already. He keeps friends with the students."

"Quicker, quicker...." urged Vassiliev. Mikhail Sergueyich, a stout doctor with fair hair, received the friends politely, firmly, coldly, and smiled with one cheek only.

"The painter and Mayer have told me of your disease already," he said. "Very glad to be of service to you. Well? Sit down, please."

He made Vassiliev sit down in a big chair by the table, and put a box of cigarettes in front of him.

"Well?" he began, stroking his knees. "Let's make a start. How old are you?"

He put questions and the medico answered. He asked whether Vassiliev's father suffered from any peculiar diseases, if he had fits of drinking, was he distinguished by his severity or any other eccentricities. He asked the same questions about his grandfather, mother, sisters, and brothers. Having ascertained that his mother had a fine voice and occasionally appeared on the stage, he suddenly brightened up and asked:

"Excuse me, but could you recall whether the theatre was not a passion with your mother?"

About twenty minutes passed. Vassiliev was bored by the doctor stroking his knees and talking of the same thing all the while.

"As far as I can understand your questions, Doctor," he said. "You want to know whether my disease is hereditary or not. It is not hereditary."

The doctor went on to ask if Vassiliev had not any secret vices in his early youth, any blows on the head, any love passions, eccentricities, or exceptional infatuations. To half the questions habitually asked by careful doctors you may return no answer without any injury to your health; but Mikhail Sergueyich, the medico and the painter looked as though, if Vassiliev failed to answer even one single question, everything would be ruined. For some reason the doctor wrote down the answers he received on a scrap of paper. Discovering that Vassiliev had already passed through the faculty of natural science and was now in the Law faculty, the doctor began to be pensive....

"He wrote a brilliant thesis last year...." said the medico.

"Excuse me. You mustn't interrupt me; you prevent me from concentrating," the doctor said, smiling with one cheek. "Yes, certainly that is important for the anamnesis.... Yes, yes.... And do you drink vodka?" he turned to Vassiliev.

"Very rarely."

Another twenty minutes passed. The medico began sotto voce to give his opinion of the immediate causes of the fit and told how he, the painter and Vassiliev went to S----v Street the day before yesterday.

The indifferent, reserved, cold tone in which his friends and the doctor were speaking of the women and the miserable street seemed to him in the highest degree strange....

"Doctor, tell me this one thing," he said, restraining himself from being rude. "Is prostitution an evil or not?"

"My dear fellow, who disputes it?" the doctor said with an expression as though he had long ago solved all these questions for himself. "Who disputes it?"

"Are you a psychiatrist?"

"Yes-s, a psychiatrist."

"Perhaps all of you are right," said Vassiliev, rising and beginning to walk from corner to corner. "It may be. But to me all this seems amazing. They see a great achievement in my having passed through two faculties at the university; they praise me to the skies because I have written a work that will be thrown away and forgotten in three years' time, but became I can't speak of prostitutes as indifferently as I can about these chairs, they send me to doctors, call me a lunatic, and pity me."

For some reason Vassiliev suddenly began to feel an intolerable pity for himself, his friends, and everybody whom he had seen the day before yesterday, and for the doctor. He began to sob and fell into the chair.

The friends looked interrogatively at the doctor. He, looking as though he magnificently understood the tears and the despair, and knew himself a specialist in this line, approached Vassiliev and gave him some drops to drink, and then when Vassiliev grew calm undressed him and began to examine the sensitiveness of his skin, of the knee reflexes....

And Vassiliev felt better. When he was coming out of the doctor's he was already ashamed; the noise of the traffic did not seem irritating, and the heaviness beneath his heart became easier and easier as though it were thawing. In his hand were two prescriptions. One was for kali- bromatum, the other--morphia. He used to take both before.

He stood still in the street for a while, pensive, and then, taking leave of his friends, lazily dragged on towards the university. MISFORTUNE

Sophia Pietrovna, the wife of the solicitor Loubianzev, a handsome young woman of about twenty-five, was walking quickly along a forest path with her bungalow neighbour, the barrister Ilyin. It was just after four. In the distance, above the path, white feathery clouds gathered; from behind them some bright blue pieces of cloud showed through. The clouds were motionless, as if caught on the tops of the tall, aged fir trees. It was calm and warm.

In the distance the path was cut across by a low railway embankment, along which at this hour, for some reason or other, a sentry strode. Just behind the embankment a big, six-towered church with a rusty roof shone white.

"I did not expect to meet you here," Sophia Pietrovna was saying, looking down and touching the last year's leaves with the end of her parasol. "But now I am glad to have met you. I want to speak to you seriously and finally. Ivan Mikhailovich, if you really love and respect me I implore you to stop pursuing me i You follow me like a shadow--there's such a wicked look in your eye--you make love to me--write extraordinary letters and ... I don't know how all this is going to end--Good Heavens! What can all this lead to?"

Ilyin was silent. Sophia Pietrovna took a few steps and continued:

"And this sudden complete change has happened in two or three weeks after five years of friendship. I do not know you any more, Ivan Mikhailovich."

Sophia Pietrovna glanced sideways at her companion. He was staring intently, screwing up his eyes at the feathery clouds. The expression of his face was angry, capricious and distracted, like that of a man who suffers and at the same time must listen to nonsense.

"It is annoying that you yourself can't realise it!" Madame Loubianzev continued, shrugging her shoulders. "Please understand that you're not playing a very nice game. I am married, I love and respect my husband. I have a daughter. Don't you really care in the slightest for all this? Besides, as an old friend, you know my views on family life ... on the sanctity of the home, generally."

Ilyin gave an angry grunt and sighed:

"The sanctity of the home," he murmured, "Good Lord!"

"Yes, yes. I love and respect my husband and at any rate the peace of my family life is precious to me. I'd sooner let myself be killed than be the cause of Andrey's or his daughter's unhappiness. So, please, Ivan Mikhailovich, for goodness' sake, leave me alone. Let us be good and dear friends, and give up these sighings and gaspings which don't suit you. It's settled and done with! Not another word about it. Let us talk of something else!"

Sophia Pietrovna again glanced sideways at Ilyin. He was looking up. He was pale, and angrily he bit his trembling lips. Madame Loubianzev could not understand why he was disturbed and angry, but his pallor moved her.

"Don't be cross. Let's be friends," she said, sweetly.

"Agreed! Here is my hand."

Ilyin took her tiny plump hand in both his, pressed it and slowly raised it to his lips.

"I'm not a schoolboy," he murmured. "I'm not in the least attracted by the idea of friendship with the woman I love."

"That's enough. Stop! It is all settled and done with. We have come as far as the bench. Let us sit down...."

A sweet sense of repose filled Sophia Pietrovna's soul. The most difficult and delicate thing was already said. The tormenting question was settled and done with. Now she could breathe easily and look straight at Ilyin. She looked at him, and the egotistical sense of superiority that a woman feels over her lover caressed her pleasantly. She liked the way this big strong man with a virile angry face and a huge black beard sat obediently at her side and hung his head. They were silent for a little while. "Nothing is yet settled and done with," Ilyin began. "You are reading me a sermon. 'I love and respect my husband ... the sanctity of the home....' I know all that for myself and I can tell you more. Honestly and sincerely I confess that I consider my conduct as criminal and immoral. What else? But why say what is known already? Instead of sermonizing you had far better tell me what I am to do."

"I have already told you. Go away."

"I have gone. You know quite well. I have started five times and half- way there I have come back again. I can show you the through tickets. I have kept them all safe. But I haven't the power to run away from you. I struggle frightfully, but what in Heaven's name is the use? If I cannot harden myself, if I'm weak and faint-hearted. I can't fight nature. Do you understand? I cannot! I run away from her and she holds me back by my coattails. Vile, vulgar weakness."

Ilyin blushed, got up, and began walking by the bench:

"How I hate and despise myself. Good Lord, I'm like a vicious boy--running after another man's wife, writing idiotic letters, degrading myself. Ach!" He clutched his head, grunted and sit down.

"And now comes your lack of sincerity into the bargain," he continued with bitterness. "If you don't think I am playing a nice game--why are you here? What drew you? In my letters I only ask you for a straightforward answer: Yes, or No; and instead of giving it me, every day you contrive that we shall meet 'by chance' and you treat me to quotations from a moral copy-book."

Madame Loubianzev reddened and got frightened. She suddenly felt the kind of awkwardness that a modest woman would feel at being suddenly discovered naked.

"You seem to suspect some deceit on my side," she murmured. "I have always given you a straight answer; and I asked you for one to-day."

"Ah, does one ask such things? If you had said to me at once 'Go away,' I would have gone long ago, but you never told me to. Never once have you been frank. Strange irresolution. My God, either you're playing with me, or...."

Ilyin did not finish, and rested his head in his hands. Sophia Pietrovna recalled her behaviour all through. She remembered that she had felt all these days not only in deed but even in her most intimate thoughts opposed to Ilyin's love. But at the same moment she knew that there was a grain of truth in the barrister's words. And not knowing what kind of truth it was she could not think, no matter how much she thought about it, what to say to him in answer to his complaint. It was awkward being silent, so she said shrugging her shoulders:

"So I'm to blame for that too?"

"I don't blame you for your insincerity," sighed Ilyin. "It slipped out unconsciously. Your insincerity is natural to you, in the natural order of things as well. If all mankind were to agree suddenly to become serious, everything would go to the Devil, to ruin."

Sophia Pietrovna was not in the mood for philosophy; but she was glad of the opportunity to change the conversation and asked:

"Why indeed?"

"Because only savages and animals are sincere. Since civilisation introduced into society the demand, for instance, for such a luxury as woman's virtue, sincerity has been out of place."

Angrily Ilyin began to thrust his stick into the sand. Madame Loubianzev listened without understanding much of it; she liked the conversation. First of all, she was pleased that a gifted man should speak to her, an average woman, about intellectual things; also it gave her great pleasure to watch how the pale, lively, still angry, young face was working. Much she did not understand; but the fine courage of modern man was revealed to her, the courage by which he without reflection or surmise solves the great questions and constructs his simple conclusions.

Suddenly she discovered that she was admiring him, and it frightened her.

"Pardon, but I don't really understand," she hastened to say. "Why did you mention insincerity? I entreat you once more, be a dear, good friend and leave me alone. Sincerely, I ask it."

"Good--I'll do my best. But hardly anything will come of it. Either I'll put a bullet through my brains or ... I'll start drinking in the stupidest possible way. Things will end badly for me. Everything has its limit, even a struggle with nature. Tell me now, how can one struggle with madness? If you've drunk wine, how can you get over the excitement? What can I do if your image has grown into my soul, and stands incessantly before my eyes, night and day, as plain as that fir tree there? Tell me then what thing I must do to get out of this wretched, unhappy state, when all my thoughts, desires, and dreams belong, not to me, but to some devil that has got hold of me? I love you, I love you so much that I've turned away from my path, given up my career and my closest friends, forgot my God. Never in my life have I loved so much."

Sophia Pietrovna, who was not expecting this turn, drew her body away from Ilyin, and glanced at him frightened. Tears shone in his eyes. His lips trembled, and a hungry, suppliant expression showed over all his face.

"I love you," he murmured, bringing his own eyes near to her big, frightened ones. "You are so beautiful. I'm suffering now; but I swear I could remain so all my life, suffering and looking into your eyes, but.... Keep silent, I implore you."

Sophia Pietrovna as if taken unawares began, quickly, quickly, to think out words with which to stop him. "I shall go away," she decided, but no sooner had she moved to get up, than Ilyin was on his knees at her feet already. He embraced her knees, looked into her eyes and spoke passionately, ardently, beautifully. She did not hear his words, for her fear and agitation. Somehow now at this dangerous moment when her knees pleasantly contracted, as in a warm bath, she sought with evil intention to read some meaning into her sensation. She was angry because the whole of her instead of protesting virtue was filled with weakness, laziness, and emptiness, like a drunken man to whom the ocean is but knee-deep; only in the depths of her soul, a little remote malignant voice teased: "Why don't you go away? Then this is right, is it?"

Seeking in herself an explanation she could not understand why she had not withdrawn the hand to which Ilyin's lips clung like a leech, nor why, at the same time as Ilyin, she looked hurriedly right and left to see that they were not observed.

The fir-trees and the clouds stood motionless, and gazed at them severely like broken-down masters who see something going on, but have been bribed not to report to the head. The sentry on the embankment stood like a stick and seemed to be staring at the bench. "Let him look!" thought Sophia Pietrovna.

"But ... But listen," she said at last with despair in her voice. "What will this lead to? What will happen afterwards?"

"I don't know. I don't know," he began to whisper, waving these unpleasant questions aside.

The hoarse, jarring whistle of a railway engine became audible. This cold, prosaic sound of the everyday world made Madame Loubianzev start.

"It's time, I must go," she said, getting up quickly. "The train is coming. Audrey is arriving. He will want his dinner."

Sophia Pietrovna turned her blazing cheeks to the embankment. First the engine came slowly into sight, after it the carriages. It was not a bungalow train, but a goods train. In a long row, one after another like the days of man's life, the cars drew past the white background of the church, and there seemed to be no end to them.

But at last the train disappeared, and the end car with the guard and the lighted lamps disappeared into the green. Sophia Pietrovna turned sharply and not looking at Ilyin began to walk quickly back along the path. She had herself in control again. Red with shame, offended, not by Ilyin, no I but by the cowardice and shamelessness with which she, a good, respectable woman allowed a stranger to embrace her knees. She had only one thought now, to reach her bungalow and her family as quickly as possible. The barrister could hardly keep up with her. Turning from the path on to a little track, she glanced at him so quickly that she noticed only the sand on his knees, and she motioned with her hand at him to let her be.

Running into the house Sophia Pietrovna stood for about five minutes motionless in her room, looking now at the window then at the writing table.... "You disgraceful woman," she scolded herself; "disgraceful!" In spite of herself she recollected every detail, hiding nothing, how all these days she had been against Ilyin's love-making, yet she was somehow drawn to meet him and explain; but besides this when he was lying at her feet she felt an extraordinary pleasure. She recalled everything, not sparing herself, and now, stifled with shame, she could have slapped her own face.

"Poor Andrey," she thought, trying, as she remembered her husband, to give her face the tenderest possible expression--"Varya, my poor darling child, does not know what a mother she has. Forgive me, my dears. I love you very much ... very much!..."

And wishing to convince herself that she was still a good wife and mother, that corruption had not yet touched those "sanctities" of hers, of which she had spoken to Ilyin, Sophia Pietrovna ran into the kitchen and scolded the cook for not having laid the table for Andrey Ilyitch. She tried to imagine her husband's tired, hungry look, and pitying him aloud, she laid the table herself, a thing which she had never done before. Then she found her daughter Varya, lifted her up in her hands and kissed her passionately; the child seemed to her heavy and cold, but she would not own it to herself, and she began to tell her what a good, dear, splendid father she had.